1997 Silverton Motor Yacht — Washington, District of Columbia 20019

A 1997 Silverton 372 Motor Yacht lying in Washington, DC, asking $75,000 — and a boat listed in a capital city where marina liveaboards are a recognized housing category is telling you what it is for. The 372 was Silverton of Millville, New Jersey's great commercial success: more than 600 sold, introduced for the 1997 model year and rebadged 392 from 1999. The reason it sold is one decision. Silverton deleted the side decks and replaced them with elevated staircases — SideWalks, the company called them — and spent the reclaimed width on a full-beam salon that midsize motoryachts simply did not have. Cherry joinery, a two-level saloon with separate dining and lounging, a full galley, and two staterooms each with its own head and stall shower, on a 14-foot beam and a solid fiberglass bottom.

The same decision writes the against-case. With no side decks, going forward means climbing over the salon roof, and docking shorthanded is choreography you should rehearse before you sign. The owner forums, which are otherwise warmer about Silverton build quality than the brand's price point suggests — visitors to the Millville plant came away impressed — flag the recurring trouble spots: aft-deck hatches, engine-to-stringer mounts, and on gas-powered boats the appetite of big V8s pushing eighteen tons of house. One documented case of exhaust water reversion hydrolocking a pair of young injected engines is in the record; it reads as a lemon story rather than a fleet pattern, but it points the surveyor at risers, manifolds and oil analysis all the same. Well-built and worth checking hard are not opposites; they are the same instruction.

The ladder around it gives the $75,000 context. Four years newer, with a flybridge helm and the strongest space-per-dollar argument in the class, costs $14,988 more:

The express alternative — cockpit living, same water, the last hull to wear the Trojan badge — costs $5,200 less:

And the 1980s import that made this layout a movement costs $22,505 less, teak decks and all:

For a floating two-bedroom flat with a District address and no stairs to the street, start here:

Sources: PowerBoat Guide (Silverton 372/392 Motor Yacht, 1996–2001); boats.com review of the 372; The Hull Truth and Trawler Forum owner threads on Silverton build quality.