2012 Monterey Monterey 328 SS — Palm Beach Gardens, Florida

A 2012 Monterey 328 Super Sport at Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, asking $79,900 — and carried by two brokers at once, which is worth knowing before an offer. Monterey is the Williston, Florida family yard that has built value-priced sport boats since 1985, and the 328 SS arrived in 2011 as the flagship of its Super Sport bowrider line: 32.17 ft of hull on 9.67 ft of beam, drawn for twin sterndrives, a full head and a small cabin below — the dayboat idea at cruiser scale, open seating where a cruiser would put an interior.

Two honesty notes. We hold no sister 328 SS to benchmark this one against, so whether $79,900 is keen for a 2012 is a question for the survey, not for us. And a fourteen-year-old twin-sterndrive boat is a known quantity: drives, bellows and manifolds are where the survey earns its fee.

What our shelf does place is the trade. On our powerboat ladder, nothing near this money is this much boat — the bowriders asking similar sums are five and nine feet shorter, and four and eleven years newer. This one sells length and twin-engine room; the others sell youth.

The clean cross-read is the 2016 Cobalt R7 at Sag Harbor — five feet shorter and four years newer for $4,100 more:

If the budget moves, the generation upgrade is the 2019 Regal 29 OBX at Metairie — outboard power, seven fewer years, $120,000:

And where the opposite instinct leads — berths over bow seating — the 2006 Rinker 360 Express Cruiser at Bloomington, Indiana is seven more feet of genuine cruiser for $2,600 more, six years older:

But if the brief is the most day boat the money buys, this is the one to survey first: