Silverstreak has some major issues. Having tried to buy them unsuccessfully for over 8 years i should know, lol.
1. Heavy boats. They are built solid, with solid aluminum floors. unfortunately this compromises on their weight carrying capacity. The 18 foot silverstreak is so heavy it can only take 4 people instead of 6 like a kingfisher. The payload capacity is also very low and they are difficult to tow. The 18 foot hard top is 4500lb fully loaded tow weight. thats ridiculous. A 18 foot kingfisher is 2850 lbs tow weight.
2. Unfinished boats. Silverstreaks approach is to weld together some aluminum, cut a few holes for instruments which are minimal and literally dump some foam at the bottom of the boat. No usable space such as the kingfisher has with nice lockable storage. the space below the console is literally a huge void filled with foam and has a 6 foot by 3 foot opening. your feet dangle above the bottom of the hull and there is no place to rest your feet. For $80,000+ i expect nice lockable storage, nice finishing and usable space on the interior. the aluminum floor is so heavy is cuts straight into your load capacity on the boat. For commercial boats its great but for personal boats im not going to throwing stuff on the floor from 10 ft away.
3. The owner. The guy is an old crotchety character. I had a long phone and email discussion with the sales guys and manager and got a list of customizations i wanted for a brand new SS over 3 weeks with a 3 month build schedule. I then bought a $200 ferry ticket and took my car over with a cashiers check for north of $85,000. Spent the whole day travelling to their location to sign the paperwork. All paperwork is ready, i am going to sign and the owner shows up at 11am and is grumpy. Cancels the deal and says they have a gov of canada order and my money is no good because the gov of canada spends more. They will only sell me a stock boat with zero customizations, not even a change to the paint color. I take a ride back, put cheque in bank and buy the kingfisher for half the price.
4. Noisy and Rough ride. The solid floor and hull mean its a very noisy boat. Unlike the kingfisher where i cant hear water rushing and bangs when it pounds the silverstreak does all that and more. at planing in chop it sounds like a drum set. the ride is so terrible silverstreak provides shock mitigating seats as standard. The floors are also cold and unyielding. No give. which means a shock to your knees when you hop on. And no chance of dropping in a few sleeping bags and boat camping. youre going to be frozen.
So basically if you want a boat you can take crabbing with your buddy and have a few dozen steel crab pots youre going to bang around and throw around on your boat floor all day -- go for the silverstreak. if youre looking to save cash, go out with family, maybe fish a little go for the kingfisher or hewes. ive put evo foam floors on mine and used it for camping in victoria after crossing. enough to sleep two and be comfortable with sleeping bags. ive taken 6 on it with no issues, it has 6 seats. everyone is happy. its a good all round boat. not tough like the SS but much more comfortable. sure i'll probably have to rip the flooring out and replace it after 3-4 years but its $400 to replace the whole thing.
