WHAT happens to a boat sitting in water for TWO years?

From experience the original water pumps do suck. Replaced with after market, no issues. That's the only nonmaintenance thing that was replaced on mine. 1200 hours

Sounds like now you're on a better path. You absolutely also want a diesel engine survey by a qualified Cummins guy, so one for the boat and one for the engines & generator, and remember, there's no guaranty they will find it all. My last purchase after nearly 2 years shopping, was 6 months back. Both surveyor's and their reports appeared very thorough and in most cases correct however not 100% and some of the items found were also a surprise to the seller who when all was said & done agreed to reduce the contract by over 30% from original asking price.

I've no first hand knowledge of this photo but the story with it was she had not moved in many years and than one morning found on the bottom; refloated and towed to a yard. Have you looked into insurance yet ? I found nearly all of the underwriters wanted a survey by a surveyor who's a member of their listed survey entity.

A Carver is usually an OK affordable boat. Not a battlewagon, but then they don't usually cost like a battlewagon, either.

Pro: Carver puts a lot of boat in X length. Con: Carver puts a lot of boat in X length.

When we were shopping last, we looked at Carvers and many had decent "people features" that we wanted. OTOH, when I looked at access to systems... ummmmm... challenging. And minimizing access to systems is what made some of the "people features" possible.

That said... a 45' Carver is maybe going to be easier to maintain than a 39'... because maybe the larger boat has the same "people features" but may offer better service access. Unless they took that opportunity to cram in another whole stateroom.

FWIW, we didn't buy a Carver... after shopping mostly on the 560/570V... almost primarily because I didn't like the helm stations. Not enough room for a decent MFD layout at the upper station, ditto at the lower station -- latter complicated by MFD locations overhead of the windshield AND because of such a sloping windshield that glare was a factor. Friends looked at 460/450 models that they liked, but I didn't review those closely...

-Chris

As far as buying a used Carver: You may want to read up on a surveyors experience with the brand. (This is from the mid-90s, maybe quality has improved later, but this is still an interesting read)

"When we first decided to do boat reviews, we pretty much decided that there were certain boat builders that we wouldn't consider. These would mainly be the entry-level class builders, or builders whose products had established such a well known reputation for poor quality and defective products that we needn't state the obvious.

There are always those folks who can't resist a bargain, or whose philosophy is to always shop and buy based on the lowest price. Sure, we harp on quality a lot, mainly because boats are so very expensive, and to spend $100,000 on the lowest priced boat of its class is just plain nuts. But we've come to realize that there are some people -- many of them, in fact -- who will never realize the error in this. So there's no point in our attempting to dissuade them.

We also pointed out in our Introduction to Boat Reviews, which many of our readers don't read, and therefore miss the whole point of these reviews being here, that the quality amongst any builder's product line can be highly variable, not only from model to model, but from year to year, or even month to month. We cautioned against simply reading a review of one boat, and then applying the information in that review more or less globally. We cautioned that boats are not cranked out of a machine, but are hand made products. By human hands, that is. So you may want to reflect on the old Russian adage that you never want to buy a refrigerator that is made on a Monday or a Friday. Or anything else, for that matter.

Carver is one of those builders whom we didn't see much point in mentioning, for the caliber of their products are well known, and a buyer would have to have been asleep for the past twenty years, or simply too lazy to do any research at all, not to know what kind of boats they build. Surveyors have long considered them to be little more than floating campers, and are often heard to make jokes such as "they forgot to put the wheels on this one." "

https://www.yachtsurvey.com/boatreviews/Carver370.htm

Seems a bit overly harsh. And Pascoe was known for diss'ing some brands for whatever reason, some maybe OK, some maybe just angst.

There are a bazillions Carvers out there, I'd guess mostly suited for their owners' mission and budget.

-Chris

Sounds harsh but good info for Carver buyers, new or used.
(Unless Pascoe made it up, but it appears he is just commenting and taking
photos of real boats with real problems)

Hopefully they are better now.

Neighbors buddy across that canal told him he had not seen anyone on her in years. From what I've been told by those that took the leap, major projects such as that one would have been, from the financial point don't make sense, but then again when it comes to boats most times it's best for ones health to not look at the dollars. I just tall myself next lifetime I will instead take up hitting little white balls across fancy grass.

I'm always motivated by how it feels when the calendar is cleared & all the BS is left behind as we're running Eastward and with each look back there's less and less of the over built shoreline.