2005 MJM 34z Downeast — Fort Lauderdale, Florida

A 2005 MJM 34z Downeast at Fort Lauderdale, asking $330,000 through Down East Yachting — one of two brokerages carrying it. The 34z is the boat that founded MJM: Bob Johnstone, the J of J/Boats, had Doug Zurn draw a Downeast express cruiser to a sailor's brief — 34 feet of easily driven hull on a moderate 11-foot beam — and Boston BoatWorks built it the way race yards build, in wet pre-preg epoxy, Kevlar and E-glass over Corecell, vacuum-bagged and post-cured. The run lasted 2004 to 2009; this is an early hull.

Two honesty notes. This is the only 34z we hold, so the shelf cannot say whether $330,000 is keen for the model — there is no sister to price it against. And a 2005 boat is a 2005 boat; the epoxy build has a reputation for lasting, but nothing here implies we have surveyed this hull.

What the shelf does place is the premium. The mid-2000s production cruisers we hold near its length ask $60,900 to $116,999, and even the newest boat in the set sits $135,000 under it. The $330,000 buys construction and pedigree, not length — this is the top of its powerboats set by a wide margin. Know which trade you are making.

The plain benchmark is the 2007 Formula 34 PC at Gordonville, Texas — the same 34 feet, two years newer, $213,001 less:

If the age is what gives you pause, the 2021 Schaefer 303 Sport at Port Saint Lucie is the nearest thing here to new — sixteen years newer, two feet shorter, $135,000 under the MJM:

And where the opposite instinct leads, the 2006 Formula 370 Super Sport at Stillwater, Minnesota buys three more feet of the same era for $240,010 less:

But if it is the epoxy hull and the sailor's eye you are paying for, nothing else in this set has either — this is the one to survey first: