2021 Schaefer Yachts 303 — Port Saint Lucie, FL

A 2021 Schaefer 303 Sport at Port Saint Lucie, Florida, asking $195,000 through Pop Yachts. Schaefer Yachts is the Brazilian yard designer Márcio Schaefer founded in 1992, and the 303 — his own drawing, in production since 2016 — is its calling card: the yard counts more than 1,500 sold and calls it the best-selling boat in Brazil's history. The brief is a day boat first, 32.08 ft of hull on a slim 9.33 ft of beam with a cockpit for ten, and a usable weekending cabin below it: vee berth, midship double, head.

Two honesty notes. We hold no sister 303 to benchmark the asking price against. And the boat is carried by two brokerages at once — an open listing, worth knowing before you negotiate. What the shelf does place is the position: of the ten cruisers we hold around its size, only one asks more, and what $195,000 buys here is model year — this is the newest boat in the set by three years, in a field where mid-2000s cruisers of 29 to 39 feet ask $50,000–$117,000.

Whether that youth premium is worth paying is the standing question of the powerboat shelf, and the doors around this boat frame it.

The like-for-like door is the 2013 Monterey 340 Sport Yacht at Stillwater, Minnesota — two more feet of boat for $30,200 less, carrying eight more seasons:

If Florida and a late-model hull are the fixed points, the 2018 Rinker 290 Express Cruiser at Miami is the sharp counter-offer — three years older, a foot shorter, $110,000 less:

And where the instinct runs to pedigree rather than youth, the MJM 34z at Fort Lauderdale is the build-quality upgrade — a 2005 boat that still asks $135,000 over this 2021 one:

But if the newest hull in the row is the point, this is the one to survey first: