1992 Catalina 28 — Worth, IL 60482

A 1992 Catalina 28 lying at Worth, Illinois, asking $19,000 through World Yachts. Catalina drew this model from scratch rather than stretching the Catalina 27 it replaced: Gerry Douglas's in-house team put 28.5 ft of hull on 10.3 ft of beam, and 620 were built between 1991 and 1995 before the stern was widened for the Mark II. A 1992 boat is one of the earlier, narrower-transomed hulls, and the yard's signature is that arithmetic — accommodation first, plainly built, sold in volume.

Two things we cannot tell you. We hold no other Catalina 28, so there is no sister here to say whether $19,000 is keen or dear for the model. And the record carries no condition note, no survey, no days-on-market — on a thirty-four-year-old production cruiser, that is not a small gap.

What the shelf does place is the money. Among the cruising monohulls we hold in this size range only one asks less, and the next boat above it costs $15,900 more. This is the bottom rung of the cruising sailboats under $50k, where the survey and not the ask sets the real price.

The nearest door is the same yard eleven years on — a 2003 Catalina 310 at West Palm Beach, $42,000.

Where the opposite instinct leads, the 1983 Hunter 31 at Mystic is three feet longer for $7,750 — more boat, and nine more years of it.

Out of Catalina altogether, the 1999 Beneteau Oceanis 321 at New Orleans is the middle path: 32.6 ft, seven years newer, $34,900.

But this is the only Catalina 28 on our shelf, and at this ask the survey is the whole decision: