Broadblue sailboats for sale

Buying a used Broadblue: a brand with two brushes with insolvency behind it

Broadblue's history includes not one but two corporate failures — Prout Catamarans' collapse into a second bankruptcy in 2002, and Broadblue's own liquidation in January 2009 — with a relaunch each time built on salvaged tooling, moulds and staff rather than a continuous, unbroken company. None of that makes any individual boat unsound, but it does mean a used Broadblue is best judged by which era and which yard actually built it, rather than by brand reputation alone; condition, build era and paperwork carry more of the story here than they would with a builder that never changed hands.

Which era to target

Pre-2009 boats came from the original company, which built rebadged and refitted Prout designs through mid-2008 before a short-lived 2008 deal with Hillyards to build the 415 and develop a never-completed Broadblue 500. Only three 42s were finished at Canvey Island under that arrangement, with a fourth hull left unfinished when Hillyard's own yard failed — boats from that narrow, roughly year-long window are the rarest in the range and worth researching individually.

Post-relaunch boats date from February 2009 onward, when Mark Elliot and Mark Jarvis rebuilt the company around Canvey Island production before the build settled into the Poland-and-Cornwall split the company itself describes. The 385 is the one model that spans both eras, continuously Poland-built throughout; a buyer considering one should confirm which generation they're looking at — an earlier hull, or the tweaked S4 update the builder itself describes as a development of the popular S3.

Navigating the lineup

The range splits along two lineages rather than one continuous progression: cruising catamarans descended from Prout and the 2007 Voyager 10 design (the 385, and the 345/346, built first in China and then in Poland after the relaunch), and the performance-oriented Rapier 550, designed separately by Nic Bailey with Darren Newton's Multimarine yard. Deciding which of those two lineages fits is the first step before comparing individual boats — the full model directory on this page breaks out sizes and years across both.