Buying a used Aquarius: confirm which builder before anything else
A used sailboat listed simply as an "Aquarius" could come from any of several unrelated builders, and the differences between them are total -- different countries, different decades, different kinds of boat. A Minnesota-built catamaran, a California-built trailer-sailer, and a Finnish-built cruising yacht have all carried the same name with nothing else connecting them. Before weighing condition or price on any specific hull, a buyer's first job is tracing the listing back to its actual builder, since that determines everything else about what the boat is and how it was built.
Which era to target
The catamaran line runs from Aquarius Sail Inc.'s Minnesota years: the company bought the SuperCat catamaran business outright in the fall of 1984, after it had already passed through Formulae Racing Sailboats, Boston Whaler, and Erickson Yachts in California. Designer Bill Roberts partnered with the company from there into the 2000s, developing the RC-27 before the partnership formalized; the SC-22 was renamed ARC-22 in 2000 to mark a shift toward a strict one-design fleet program, a useful marker for dating the later catamarans.
The trailer-sailer line is older and shorter-lived: Coastal Recreation, Inc. built the Aquarius 21 and 23 in Costa Mesa, California, across the company's roughly 1969-to-1983 lifespan, so any Aquarius 21 or 23 dates to that window.
The Aquarius 40 is older still and separate from both -- a Finnish-built GRP design produced first as the "S&S 40" in the late 1960s, then continued under the same molds, renamed, after 1977.
Navigating the lineup
Shoppers after a catamaran should look to the RC- and ARC-series hulls out of Minnesota; shoppers after a small, trailerable cruiser should look to the 21 or 23 out of California; and an Aquarius 40 turning up in a search is its own project entirely, tied to a Finnish yard rather than either US company. From there, the full model directory on this page breaks out the individual listings.
Where they're listed
Aquarius listings appear across 3 countries. Australia has the most listings with 2 (40.0%), followed by Montenegro and United States.
Country view
5 listings · 3 countries| Country | Median ask | Listings · 12 mo | Active · 90 d | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Australia | $7,065 | 2 | 1 | 40.0% |
| Montenegro | $219,334 | 2 | 0 | 40.0% |
| United States | $3,250 | 1 | 0 | 20.0% |
All Aquarius models
1 model grouped by length overall. Open any model to see recent asking prices and active listings.