2003 Carver Carver 350 Mariner; 36 Mariner — Cumming, GA 30040

A 2003 Carver 350 Mariner at Cumming, Georgia, asking $60,900 through Big Creek Marine Group. Carver built this hull from 1997 to 2012, latterly as the 36 Mariner, around one idea: volume. There is 12.75 ft of beam on 36.58 ft of length, and the side decks lift above the cabin windows so the walkways climb to the bridge rather than run aft. That buys a full-beam, single-level salon. It costs the cockpit. The styling was never the argument; the interior was.

A 2003 falls before the 2004 floorplan revision, so as drawn it is the original arrangement — U-shaped dinette, an interior ladder to the bridge, an offset forward double — not the later centerline queen. Two honesty notes: we hold no second 350 Mariner, so we cannot say whether $60,900 is keen for the year; and the address is inland Georgia, north of Atlanta — a lake boat's address, not a coastal one.

What our shelf does place is the price. Among the cruisers we set beside it, nothing over 36 feet asks under $80,000; the nearest two are both 2006 boats, wanting $82,500 and $89,990. This is the cheapest route to a 36-footer on the power ladder, and the trade above is why: it sells salon where the express boats sell cockpit.

If newer matters more than length, the 2008 Regal 2860 Window Express at Winthrop Harbor asks $49,995:

Where the opposite instinct leads — cockpit first, more boat — the 2006 Rinker 360 Express Cruiser lies at Bloomington:

The cheapest door into the same yard sits a rung below, among the cabin cruisers under $50k — the 1994 Carver Santego at Erie:

But if it is the full-beam salon you came for, nothing else here does it — this is the one to survey first: