Older Hatt vs Older Sea Ray vs Newer Silverton

The point I am trying to make is provide some more details to the reference SR spills you mentioned. Make/model / year.
Are you sure it was the tank itself not a fitting or a hose or a fill or what? Was it a neglected boat or a well cared for boat? Gas or diesel?
Add some meat to your potatoes, makes it a more satisfying meal.
My other point is you do not need to only have an frp diesel fuel tank to have a quality installation - there are two ways to “skin that cat”.

Over the years have owned several diesel inboard boats, five with fiberglass tanks and one with aluminum tanks which had been replaced before we bought it. I'm definitely sold on fiberglass tanks, but agree aluminum tanks if done as PacBlue described to USCG specs will last for many years.If I were buying my last boat, fiberglass tanks would be important, but how do you know you are buying your last boat. We are on our third "last boat" now.

No one mentions aesthetics? Hargrave was a genius. To me his designs are to boats what Frank Lloyd Wright was to architecture. I'm not sure what I'd do if someone offered me a free Searay or Silverton..... I'd probably have to grow a beard and wear sunglasses all the time I was on them so no one would recognize me. Aside from that, build quality matters.... inshore as well as off shore. I have seen plenty of disasters a half mile from the jetty. Almost there, but it will be a Hatty or similar tank.

The Hargrave designed Hatteras' are timeless and classic. The 53C is still one of the prettiest SF around, it just has that "look". But he did not design them all and there are some miss-hits along the way. The Jim Wynne designed product was not up to the same level.

The 48C in this post represent a dark design era for Hatteras in my opinion. The brain trust at Hatteras went away from a nice eye-appealing sweeping sheer to a harsh broken/stepped sheer like their competition - Bertram. It was a terrible decision to abandon the Carolina look and copy Bertram. The brain trust in sales/marketing and design were brain dead. It took them years to overcome this foolishness and get back to the Carolina look. That was about the era when the door opened for the custom Carolina SF builders to jump on this design flaw and start to chip away collectively at the SF market share at Hatteras' expense.

Not sure when JB Hargrave stopped designing for Hatteras, all that stuff has been in-house for a number of years?

I have the book on him at home.... (not there) have to look.

I'm in western PA, a few hours from Annapolis. How many hours to get to the open ocean for you? How many hours to Good ocean fishing? What is there to do in the Chesapeake?

The Chesapeake is pretty special. One reason we've not leaped back down into FL is that we like the boating better here. Lots of nooks and crannies...

Fishing is generally good. Striped bass (locally aka "rockfish") is a big deal. "Trophy" season starts 4/20 this year (one fish/angler, 35" minimum) and runs 'til the normal season starts on 5/16 (two fish/angler, over 20" (I think) and only one of those over 35"/angler). The MD DNT website has boatload of info, including other species and so forth.

-Chris

I grew up boating on the lower Chesapeake. I couple of thoughts. I love the Chesapeake but to me it is not nearly as beautiful as southern Florida. The water is brown and if you stay in it long enough you will have a brown film on you. You also have stinging nettles most every summer which takes a lot of the fun out of being on the water. But like Ranger says it has tons and I mean tons of nooks and crannies and does not have the boat density of S Fl. The season is much shorter as well. I am pretty sure my wife and daughter would be very disappointed if I told them the boat was coming back to the Chesapeake. Just my thoughts and obviously we all have our own likes and dislikes

My apologies to the OP. I did contribute to getting this off track.

Yeah, those pesky nettles... and yeah, the water isn't see-thru clear... but at least there's progress in the general clean-up (mostly from fertilizer run-off, actually, not sewage), haven't ever noticed hulls turning brown as from the tannic Carolina waters, there are solutions to jellies, cold isn't always so bad in 95° summer temps...

The normal season is about March through November... usually meaning including GOOD days in the first and last months of that. Some extend that, but it can get pretty nippy. Our harbor was frozen in, last week... but freezing doesn't happen every year.

Anyway, different strokes...

Seems to me Donald Blount designed the newest 42C, 38C, 50C (nee 48C), and 36C (nee 43C) hulls... maybe in that order, but I'm not sure about that. That probably also means the Ovation 52. All those with molded-in stairs to the bridge. Don't know if all those are the same hulls used on newest Sport Bridge or Motor Yacht configurations.

-Chris

Sorry, I can't agree on that model for the OP's intended use. The layout, functionality and cost of ownership for the Silverton or Sea Ray are a better choice, no need to go beyond a 2000 era boat in this case.

Thought I voted on the newer Silverton? Twelve year old vs a thirty one year old boat for the intended use....892 DD vs electronic 4 cycle Volvo's....3'9" vs 5'5" draft....no brainer. Have to agree that Hat looks really good.

Capt Ralph, I was responding to another post so some confusion. I think Chesapeake's decision was good for how they will use the boat and what the boat would require over the next few years. Not sure he has the talent you and Pascal have to do repairs and updates the Hat would likely need. The Hat was a pretty gal and built like a tank but have read several post over time stating that 48c Hat was not one of their best designs.

I keep watching for maybe a bigger Hatt in our future... largely to get a better master stateroom (no-kidding full walk-around berth with no climbing required, compared to our current "almost walk-around above an 15" high platform)...

But we're not moving to something with only ladders to the bridge... and a cockpit is a firm requirement... and I wouldn't be thrilled with 32V DC systems... so most of the likely candidates remain out of (responsible) reach.

Sigh...

-Chris

Capt Ralph, my post did appear like I was the OP. My last boat was a Hatteras and i'm with you on the build quality. It was built like a tank and well suited(same as Bert's) for our offshore fishing. If I were buying a boat for bay or icw use the Silverton or Searay would work.