About Stamas

Tarpon Springs is a Greek sponge diving town on Florida's Gulf coast, and the Stamas brothers learned the trade watching the Greek craftsmen build there. They put a boat of their own in the 1938 Florida State Fair, spent years building commercial and charter fishing boats, and formally founded Stamas Yacht in 1952. The company moved completely to fiberglass in 1959, early for the industry, and the V-26 Americana that followed had a deep vee hull, foam flotation and a self bailing cockpit at a time when none of that was standard. Stamas is credited with popularizing the self bailing cockpit and the built in fishbox and livewell. The current line is six boats: the 31T and 33T Aventura and the 392 Tarpon center consoles, and the 326, 370 and 390 Aegean express cabin boats, all still built at Tarpon Springs with a seven year structural warranty.

Stamas has always been a low volume builder, so there is never a large brokerage fleet and most of what comes up is a Florida boat that has fished hard in salt water. What you are buying is a fishing hull with accommodation: a head, a berth and a cabin, which is the difference between a Stamas and a bare center console and the reason they suit an owner who runs offshore for the day but wants somewhere to get out of the sun. The unusual thing here is continuity. Same family, same town, same factory since 1952, so a twenty five year old Stamas can still be asked about at the yard that built it, which is not true of most brands this age. On older boats survey the transom and stringers, the deck core, and the fuel tanks, which on any boat of that era are the expensive surprise.