Joe dirt,
    Sorry to have gelped steal your thread.  Now back to your original ?  What happens to boats that sink.  Some of them just remain on the bottom, you cna call the coast guard to determine what the salvage laws are in your area.  Some, if they are deemed a hazard to navigation are removed by the CG and destroyed.  As for salvage;  unless you are an experienced salvage diver and are very familiar with operating around wrecks, or you can find one in VERY shallow water, I would advise staying away from any wreck.  Wrecks can be festooned with fishing line, anchor ropes, mooring ropes and other detrious and could make your recovery effort into a body recovery effort by the CG.  So if they sink, most of them stay where they sank.

That 25 looks SWEEET!

Steiger makes one of the best, if not thee best, looking boats IMO.
 
On the other hand, I was blown away several weeks ago by the site of another boat running on Lake Erie. Solid 3 footers, following sea, and the boat I witnessed was skimming across the water at a speed much faster than my low to mid 20s mph, without so much as a slight shimmy or bobble. It looked like a missle. Turns out it was a 31 ft Contender. Wow, what an amazing looking ride.
 
One thing to consider when buying a boat is to be careful about buying one long distance. After I sold my Proline in April of '03, and before I bought my Grady in September of '04, I bought a new boat of a different brand (I'm legally prevented from disclosing it) and had a serious warranty issue with it. Unfortunately, the nearest dealership (also the dealership I purchased it from) was 500 miles away. What an extreme PITA that ordeal was. Lost an entire season due to it. No way, never again will I buy long distance. After I got out from under that mistake, when I went on my search for my next boat, I decided I would limit my search to brands that had dealerships no further than I was willing to drive for a day of fishing (about 150 miles). That narrowed my choice down to only select brands. Think my choices came down to Proline, Edgewater, BW, Key West, Grady White, and Wellcraft (there's probably a couple I forgot). Seems no one wanted to deal except the Grady dealer. And even then it was only on a leftover model. I managed to get a leftover (albiet new) Grady for about 20% to 25% under what they were selling for.
 
LOL, thehulltruth.com <== I spend way too much time on that site. I'm closing in on my 3,000th post on that site. What can I say, I'm a freakin' boat junky.
 
Now if I can only learn to catch fish.  

THT junkie myself. Blowchowski AKA Classic25 over there. Used to be Blowchowski until I got my Carolina Classic, and low and behold Wiley offered up a "change your user name" op.

Can I change my user name here?

A marine surveyor just told me 1995 and newer Baha SHOULD be a good solid boat but have it surveyed!
 
That boat very nice but about $70,000.00 out of my budget! lol

ORIGINAL: Big Fathead

A marine surveyor just told me 1995 and newer Baha SHOULD be a good solid boat but have it surveyed!

That boat very nice but about $70,000.00 out of my budget! lol

At 70K might as well spring the next 30k and get yourself 10ft of beam and 500hp...lol

Thats a brand new price....

I think if you look at a New Baha or Sportcraft it may shock you in terms of how they compare in price, and the steiger is 10X the boat a Baha or a Sportcraft is and they hold their value much better...I know ill get beat up for that, but sorry its true.  I would much rather have a 26 Steiger than a 299 Baha (both go for around 90K NEW).

From the best of my knowledge Baha didnt start making the no rot stringer grid until 1997.  Might want to look into that if you are looking at a 1995.  The ones prior to that had very poop fiberglass work over the wood stringer grid and they were prone to rot if water was in the bilge...When this occurs stringers require rebuilds which are both costly and will never gain the same integrity that the hull originally had when it was first produced. 

Nice thing with alot of these smaller builders is you can talk to the owners 1st hand.  I have been talking with Al and John Steiger for the past 6 months about their boats...they are great people and build one hell of a boat...Same company with the same owners since 1972 and they put a LIFETIME warrenty on the hull, deck, and stringers...now thats saying something...

Steiger's direct competiton is Parker.  They go against the all glass boat pretty much stating a wood stringer grid is stronger, requires less materials, and is incapable of rotting as long as the encapsulating is done properly.  They have a cult like following throughout the Chesapeake Bay and Carolinas.  Their boats are similar in size, power, features, and looks.

Sportcraft and Baha have a new owner and are filing bankrupcy every 10 years.  Even a 25 year transferable warrenty does little for you if the company who offered it goes down the toilet and then is rebuilt by another company who buys the molds.  Sportcraft has gone in and out of business 3 times in the past 25 years....

70K is a ton of change for a boat, but personally i know guys who have pieced together boats for years throwing cash at them.  Seems like they have a new one every 2-3 years that they are dumping money into.  I think one buddy i know has 30k Wrapped up into 4 boats over the past 5 years all of which have been less than quality rides...Rebuilding transoms, stringers, motors, buying new gear, electronics, ect for each one...thats more wasteful than purchasing new.

1986 was before the all glass construction and the lifetime warrenty.

I used to subscribe to the woodfree thing. That was until I bought my first woodfree boat in 2003. Let me tell something, unless your living in the South (which I doubt any of us are), woodfree is not necessarily better than wood.
 
When I was rigging my brand new, never seen the water before a sea trial, wood free boat (the one I purchased before my Grady White, but I can't mention the brand name due to an agreement I have with the manufactorer), I drilled the holes in the transom to install a transducer mounting plate. When I drilled one of the holes, water came out. Determined cause: An improperly sealed scupper, allowing water to enter into a void between the transom core and the outer layup of glass. The boat came that way from the factory. The manufactorer tried to fix it, but couldn't do so successfully. They offered me a new boat, even a larger one of their brand. I said no way. If it was made in that plant, I don't want it. So I went boatless for '03.
 
Here's why no wood can be just as bad as wood. Even though there's no wood to rot, we live in a freezing climate. When water intrusion occurs (and it occurs just as easily with wood free boats), that water will freeze in the winter, and we all know that when water freezes, it expands. With the freezing and thawing cycles, the laminated structure, de-laminates.
 
Coincidently, my older brother bought a Scout that same year. Guess what. Water in the transom. Could not figure out how it was getting in there. Manufactorer wouldn't do anything about it because they said the transom couldn't rot. He asked what about the delamination due to freezing. They said they would address that once the damage occurred. He ended up having to put drain plugs in the transom to let the water out. That's how bad it was. He tried to figure out how the water was getting in by injecting low pressure natural gas into the void and using a "sniffer" to detect where the gas was coming out of. It was coming out so many places, he couldn't figure out where to begin. He has since moved it to, and keeps it in Florida, so nothing further happened to it.
 
What seems to be happening is that some of these manufactorers of wood free boats are becoming lazy with their encapsulation work given the reasoning that there is no wood to rot. I don't think this applies to all of them, but some of the lower to mid priced, large scale production boat manufactors.