I'm interested in an 84
260. Twin mercruiser 350's. I'm looking to find out the good the bad and the ugly about these hulls. the one thing i did notice was a large crack in the floor right were the helm area meets the floor right next to the cabin door..... maybe common maybe not.. any info is appreciated.

Get a survey!

If i said it once on here i said it a million times my 260 was one of the best boats i ever had as far as bang for the buck. I wouldnt say it was of the highest quality but it was well built and very well layed out and comfortable for a 26 footer. It was actually a VERY big 26 footer, my dock neighbor had a 30 Scarab Panther and mine was shorter by maybe a little over a foot but bigger in every other way inside. Mine had twin small blocks and ran pretty well in chop, did about sixty but would cruise all day long at fifty at about 4K rpm (23 mirage plus's). Had a huge comfortable cabin, i weekended on it all the time. Seemed to develop stress cracks here and there but i believe that was a product of how angular all the corners and edges were, deck flexed a bit but no biggie. Great boat if your lookin for a reasonable performer.

I pulled twin 350/260hp out of my '82 260 Stinger and replaced them with a single BBC 454 roller motor. Check out my rebuild thread in the classic section titled '82 Stinger Facelift. I went through her from front to back... Gator

also was one of my good boat! had the same crack near cabin! not too fast but great all around boat! started with the idea of changing one or 2 things, ended up splitting the deck from hull and went for a complete resto ! that was back in 2000 and kept the boat 4 or 5 years!

I had my 260 for over seven hyears and absolutely loved it. (miss it a bit now since I sold it)
You mentioned a crack???
I agree with glassdave as they are a great boat but mine never had a crack as you describe. Mine was built in Penatanguisine Ontario under licence by Grew. It was a good build but I saw a Florida boat up here in Toronto last year and it had two extra short stringer braces in the floor on each side that mine did NOT have!
So to comply with Daves evaluation, they are a great boat, roomy and move well for their size, but please get someone in the "know" to check out the crack and see just how severe it is...
These boats do have a tendancy to porpice a bit and some guys who don't know how to drive beat the hell out of them in heavy seas and may have broken something.
Get someone who you trust locally to look at the boat first before you fork over a bag of cash.

Good luck and I hope its not too severe............

Do you have pictures of the boat? I may have more info on the boat depending upon which 260 it is.

I used to have a 1984 260, and the cockpit floor where it met the bench had a crack in it. But the boat had other issues as well.

Han
www.chriscraftstingers.com