1983 Hunter 31 — Mystic, Connecticut

A 1983 Hunter 31 lying at Mystic, Connecticut, asking $7,750 through Pop Yachts — one of two brokers carrying it. Cortland Steck drew the 31 for Hunter's Alachua yard, which built it from 1983 to 1987: a masthead sloop of 31.3 ft on 10.9 ft of beam, high in the bow and freeboard and dry for it. The model's reputation is settled — easy to rig, forgiving on the helm, made to singlehand, tender when it gusts — and so are the era's complaints: undersized winches, a light traveler, finish that shows the price point. First-year hulls carried the 13 hp Yanmar rather than the later 16; confirm what turns the shaft today.

The number is the story. We hold no sister ship to benchmark against and no condition notes on this hull, and the ask sits at less than half of anything comparable on our shelf. A forty-three-year-old boat at the fleet's cheapest-door price is a survey question, not a bargain by declaration; budget for the answer.

What the price does buy is position: this is the floor of our cruising sailboats under $50k shelf, where the nearest doors up ask $19,000 to $42,000. If the Hunter's age is the objection, the ladder is short. Nine years newer and three feet shorter, a 1992 Catalina 28 at Worth, Illinois asks $19,000:

If the length must stay, the 1999 Beneteau Oceanis 321 at New Orleans is the mid-fleet answer at $34,900:

And where the instinct is to buy out of survey risk altogether, the 2003 Catalina 310 at West Palm Beach holds the same 31 feet twenty years newer, at $42,000:

But if the survey comes back clean, nothing on this shelf gets you underway for less — this is the one to survey first: