Catalac sailboats for sale

Buying a used Catalac: the builder behind the hull matters as much as the model

A Catalac's badge covers five different companies across three decades, so the more useful question for a buyer usually isn't which model, but which builder - and which era - actually put a given hull together. Tom Lack built the original range himself through 1985; everything sold since then came from one of four successor companies that bought moulds and kept building after his accident, each changing the boat to some degree along the way. All of them share the same underlying engineering: hulls with no keel, holding their stability through hull form and sail plan rather than ballast below the waterline - a genuinely different sailing feel than a modern daggerboard cat, worth getting used to before judging the boat against newer designs.

Which era to target

The clearest dividing line runs through 1980, when the 8M and 9M moved from lifting, dinghy-type rudders to a fixed, skeg-hung rudder system built to fix weak windward performance - a genuine gain to windward, though it only works as designed once the boat is holding 5 to 6 knots. Which rudder system a given hull has is worth confirming before judging how it points. Builder and era matter just as much: original-run boats built by Tom Lack himself in Christchurch predate 1985; after that, Catalac Catamarans LTD built 10Ms through 1989, John Lack built 8Ms through at least 1990, Hythe Marine Services reworked the 10M into the 11M from around 1995 with stern scoops, added length, and sail controls led back to the cockpit, and Blue Water Catalacs turned the 9M into the 900 through the 1990s with a sealed cabin in place of the open doghouse. An 11M or a 900 is a distinct boat from the original it descended from, not just an older hull with new paint.

What to inspect across the range

The one modification documented across more than a single model is the Mk II rudder change around 1980: confirm which system a boat actually carries before judging its windward manners, and don't expect the earlier lifting rudder to behave like the later fixed, skeg-hung one - or expect the fixed system to perform well below its 5-to-6-knot design speed.

Navigating the lineup

Within the original Lack-built range, the 8M and 9M sit at the smaller, more numerous end, while the 10M and 12M step up in size. The 11M and 900 sit apart as later, single-builder reworkings of the 10M and 9M, each produced in far smaller numbers by a company that wasn't the original yard. The full model directory on this page breaks out dimensions and production years for each.