2003 Catalina Yachts 310 — West Palm Beach, FL 33407

A 2003 Catalina 310 lying at West Palm Beach, asking $42,000 through Mcnally Yacht Sales. Gerry Douglas drew the 310 for Catalina in 1999; the yard built more than three hundred, and the design took Cruising World's Pocket Cruiser of the Year at launch. The signature is Catalina's usual one — volume before sail area. Thirty-one feet of hull carries 11.5 ft of beam at 10,300 lb, light for the length, which is why the type keeps moving in thin air. Drawn for two people, coastal, on a budget — and it does not pretend otherwise.

Two honest notes. We hold no other 310, so there is no sister to price this one against — the model page is a shelf of one, and we cannot tell you whether $42,000 is keen. And nothing in our record says which keel this hull carries; the 310 came fin or shoal-draft wing, a different boat in the Bahamas. Ask before you plan.

What the shelf can place is the band: the 30-to-34-foot production cruisers we hold from this era ask $34,900 to $49,900. This asks mid-band money — sensible, not cheap. It sits near the ceiling of our cruising sailboats under $50k shelf and in the lower half of monohulls under $100k.

Nearly three feet longer, same year, $7,900 more, same coast — the 2003 Beneteau Oceanis 331 at Key Biscayne:

The same idea one size down is the yard's own 28, the only other Catalina on our shelf: eleven years older, $23,000 less, lying in Illinois:

Where the budget stretches, the Beneteau First 36 at Tampa swaps the couple's cruiser for the performance line and five more feet — $17,900 more, three years older:

But if a light, simple, two-handed 31-footer is the brief, this is the one to survey first: