I had never heard of this brand name but I did call to see about it. After a fairly uninformative phone call, I went online to see what I could learn. Mostly, I found nothing. One link that came up on the Yahoo search took me a boating forum that  had some anecdotal remarks, all basically praising the Manatee brand as being rock solid. I Then went to boatraderonline.com and performed a search on any ads, nationwide, for boats of this brand name. None were exactly this year or model, but they were universally a traditional deep  vee type of  hull.

Anyway, purchased by me on August 8th, 2003 - a 1978 20ft Manatee with a small cuddy cabin and 70  hp Mercury outboard.
I am only the second owner. The folks apparently took very good care of the boat, enjoying it with their own children, then turning it over to their daughter and husband who used it for some period of time. This daughter, in her 30's, actually climbed into the boat and wept for a few minutes as her father, husband and I made the final transactions.
I guess if I ever run it onto the rocks, this gal is gonna hunt me down!!

page two