Boat Review: Three Bargain Boats

Three older production trailersailers that offer a lot of bang for the buck

Over the last fifteen years we’ve been privileged to sail and review nearly a hundred different boats. Each has had its strengths and weaknesses, and we’ve reported on those, but as you might expect, some designs have still managed to stand out in one way or another.

About five years ago we highlighted twelve different review boats that we thought were particularly exceptional (see A Look Back, issue #61), but more recently we began thinking about bargain boats—boats that appear to offer a lot of value.

Several production boats we’ve tested have seemed as good as any in their class, but often sell for much less. They might have a few quirks, but they clearly offer a lot of bang for the buck. When thinking back about these Bargain Boats we considered that we might have missed something, that maybe these designs have some grievous shortcoming that justifies their low price, but their longtime owners—many of whom are staunch advocates—say otherwise.

In this article we feature three boats, each from a different size class, that we believe are generally undervalued. Each can be found for less than a couple thousand bucks, and all have the potential to bring you a lifetime of dependable sailing enjoyment.