[THEFERMANATOR]

The raised deck should sit slightly above the waterline when at rest. The early V-20's sit with the deck just below the waterline. This is why they drained to the bilge and then the bilge pump pumped it out. Otherwise the deck would stay wet all the time. The outboard boats got the raised deck first, and some of the I/O's and sea-drive boats stayed with the lower deck. The color scheme is a poor way to tell the year, but there were a few hull changes through the years. 78 brought about the raised gunnel where as 77 was flat about 3-4 feet back from the windshield. And the center consoles switched back and forth from raised front casting decks to not raised, and had several different configurations. You can go through the catalogs in the history section to find some of the major differences.