Sleekcraft Boats
 

Anyone know much about these? My understanding is that the Stryker 28 hull is the same as this one.
I'm curious how they handle rough chop (LOTO) and how much that duoprop Bravo 3 will affect performance, too.

http://boatcrazy.com/search/details.php?id=13945

I had a friend that had one back in the day. They are a respectable boat, but I'm not sure they are that well suited for LOTO. They have a shallow 22* dead rise rather than the typical deeper 24* which means they don't handle the rough as well. My friend got rid of his after a year at LOTO and stepped up to a 31 Scarab to handle the rough water.

Looking at the ad, that looks like it could be my buddy's old boat. I'll have to check with him.

I have a buddy with a 26' with 550hp and bravo 1..Pretty rough riding at our local lake on a windy day..Like Jayhawk said not a very deep V and there heavy..But they do look good IMO

I had a 26' 1987 Enforcer. Respectable lake boat, never had any problems with it. I wouldn't call it a big water boat. I don't know about the newer ones but they used to have a lot of plywood and wood screws in the seating. once a year I'd have to tighten everything up and pray I didn't overtighten/strip a screw.

I don't know much about the sleekcraft - other than its a "Hot Boat" :D

I've got the duo Bravo 3 on my SEA RAY. Its my understanding that they are a little slower, but acceleration out of the hole is much better. I've heard that the bravo 3 dissolves like alkasetzer. I had to put a skid plate on my bravo 3 after a chunk fell out about the size of a baseball card and I boat in freshwater.

Maybe he does a lot of skiing or maybe he had cavitation problems and went to the bravo 3 duo prop.

A good friend of mine has one. Its a 1980 I believe new transom stringers bulkheads gastank and floor. upgraded from trs to bravos with a high X diminsion. Solid boat. he has a pair of 468ci big blocks turning B1 4blade 28 5200rpm at about 74 mph Not a huge water boat but will handle what ever lake erie will throw At it within reason. Nice west coast boats.

I cant speak of the older ones, but the new ones from 2001 and on are built fairly well. Ownership changed around 1999-2000 when the current owner of Sleek/Magic took over.

They build a good quality boat now.

I think he went to the Bravo 3 to limit porpoising and to help it deal with the rougher water. Make sense?

The old days of Sleekcraft
 

I know nothing about the newer regime, but I was a dealer for them back in the early and mid '80s. I knew everyone in the place from Bruce Nescher, Jim Foley (now a top guy at Eliminator) as well as the rest of the crew. Bruce was a smart guy who contributed a ton to the performance boating industry.

They had a great designer who was one the rare guys who designed stuff from scratch rather than popping a mold from someone else and modifying it. Sleek was a major west-coast player with Mercury at the time and because of that relationship, I was able to participate in pre-release R&D for the original Bravo drive.

Quality-wise, if you were going to buy a "Sleekcraft" shirt, you would go to a store like Kohls or similar. Not top shelf, but very respectable. Bruce had a way of sending boats we didn't order and then try to push us to "take them off his hands" and toward the end we got at least two boats that weren't completely finished.

We sold a lot of those boats and even today we rotinely se stuff we sold 20 years ago still running around. For the rough water, there are probably better choices, but for a lake or river boat, a Sleek would be a good choice.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a bunch of brochures from the mid-eighties. The thing that struck me was that even today, they are good-looking boats.

Here's my old 86 Enforcer