Like most mass-produced boats, Silverton has a web-based "club" populated mainly by Silverton owners. We belonged to the Chris-Craft Sea Skiff Club for years and met many nice Sea Skiff owners there.
For people like us who have never owned one of these boats before, the club is a real resource. There are a number of members who own Silvertons as old as ours and older. Once I began posting questions, I found that several members had done exactly what I was doing - updating wiring, removing poorly installed parts and revising and modernizing plumbing - and knew exactly what I was talking about. In fact, several of these people appeared to be superb craftsmen and had accomplished more than I would ever attempt.
The Silverton club website isn't very fancy and it looks somewhat outdated. However, it is inexpensive ($35.00 per year) and has probably saved me more than that in the first month after I signed up.
I often wonder if the boat manufacturers ever monitor these affinity-based websites and make product improvements on what they learn from them. I'd guess that the answer is that some do sometimes and some don't.
What a great idea to find and join this club. I'm sure that all the members owning older boats are happy to share their experiences,both good and not so in order to educate and inspire other members towards keeping these old beauties on the water.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the "old Beauties," Carol Ann. Probably 80% of the people on the Silverton Club website own much newer Silvertons and still, they have questions and problems that other owners may be able to address. I'd guess that no more than 20% of the membership have "older beauties" but, as we said in the blog, we're happy to have their help.
ReplyDeleteI have a few thoughts on Silverton generally and I'll post them on the blog.