Carver Owners Forum

In the process of buying either a used Carver 1988 Mariner or a 1989 Santego. Can anyone give me some insight into either boat?

Welcome to the forum.....what size boat are you looking at ?

Either a 32' Mariner or a Santego 30?
Both are listed as 34' but I think that may be LOA
Not familiar with either boat and am curious what the differences are what advantages/disadvantages each has.

Thanks

Go to the carver website. You should be able to pull some specs and layouts from boats going back to at least the mid to late 90's. That should give you a few ideas of available options etc.
Most of the 30' santegos had outdrives vs, inboards for the mariners. That gives you more interior space, but more maintenance too.
I believe the mariners were also a bit heavier. foot for foot.

The admiral and I love our Santego. We currently have an 88 Santego 3867, but our previous boat was an 88 Santego 3067. When we purchased the 3067 we were searching for a 88 to 90 3867 but couldn’t find one, so we settled for the 3067 until we could. The 3867’s were the largest of the Santego’s built with a LOA of 45’. We love the floor plan of the Santego models regardless of the size.

My only complaint with the 3067 was the use of an inboard/outboard. In my opinion, the 3067 is too heavy a boat for the mercruiser alpha 1 outdrives. It is also the only Santego model that doesn’t have the walk through from the fly bridge to the bow. It did however have decent fuel mileage and would top out at around 30 mph at WOT. Of course I must admit, i don’t like outdrives on a cruiser and will never own anything with them again except for a runabout. Those outdrives also will mean more in maintenance costs too.

Ron, a friend of mine had a 30 santego, not sure of the year, but it had volvo 5.7's and duo prop drives. ran really well. It also had the walk down from the bridge. Maybe one of the last years?

I always liked the open one level floor plan of the 38 santego. really nice boat.

tomschauer wrote:Source of the post Ron, a friend of mine had a 30 santego, not sure of the year, but it had volvo 5.7's and duo prop drives. ran really well. It also had the walk down from the bridge. Maybe one of the last years?

I always liked the open one level floor plan of the 38 santego. really nice boat.

Tom,

That would be my guess is that it was a later model year due to the walk though bridge. The 3067’s didn’t have it, but they did have the option of the volvo’s and if memory serves correctly they had the duo prop. Now that being said, I have seen an 89 3067 with a walk through bridge, but the owner had it custom retrofitted, so at least one exists. In 91, Carver changed the model numbers and the previous 3467 became the 38 and the 3067 became the 34 and of course the 3867 was eliminated. I wish they would bring it back, I would love a new Santego in a 45’ length. (With diesels...lol)

Welcome to the forum. Both models have nice layouts. The the only thing that would concern me is the Volvo sterndrives of that vintage. The 270's and 290's for example, while good workhorses in their day are getting increasingly difficult to get parts for. There's probably a lot of parts out there through on-line retailers, and a lot of used stuff too that's being sold at a premium because of the price of the new stuff and the fact that Volvo's parts inventory for these is slowly diminishing. Depending on the model, I also don't like the design that requires removing an engine to replace the forward bearings and seals as the engine must be detached from the bellhousing to do so. And if the drives and transom assemblies are badly corroded, my advise is to walk away. Take a look at the bellows and check for cracking. Before you commit, have someone remove the drives in your presence. If there's water in the bellows, and this model requires removing the engines to replace ALL the seals and bearings as part of a proper job, you may want to reconsider as chances are that what you see is only the tip of the iceberg and that it's likely to be much worse once you begin to dismantle.

Best of luck, hope you find what you're looking for, and keep us posted.

To add to vipers comments, and please chime in if it is different for the 30. I had a 2757 montego which is the express version of the 27 santego. It was a 1988. Although I had no issue, it was a plywood cored transom. So if the old volvos had bellows leaks ( I don't know if they did) you would want to make certain the transom is solid.

Having had the Mariner 32, I vote for the Mariner.