Chaser sailboats for sale

Buying a used Chaser: identify the hull, not the badge

A used Chaser comes from a small Ontario yard that did not survive: Chaser Yacht Sales Inc., federally registered in Erin, Ontario, built genuine Doug Peterson IOR racers before its run ended, and its designs went on to be built and sold by others under different names. Buying one means buying without a live builder behind the name — with the original moulds having passed to parties who did not credit the designer, factory records, original documentation, and manufacturer support are not part of the proposition. What a buyer gets in return is real offshore racing pedigree: these were boats built to a racing rule, not stock cruisers, and a buyer who confirms which hull is actually in front of them can trade on that pedigree directly.

Which era to target

Every documented Chaser was built in a narrow window: the Chaser 29 from 1975 to 1976, the Chaser 33 starting in 1975, and the Chaser 39, the company's largest model, registered as late as 1979. All were built to the IOR rule rather than as cruising boats, which is worth weighing against a cruising hull of similar length — expect a design optimized for rating and speed under sail rather than for interior volume or easy short-handed cruising. The Chaser 39 was built in fiberglass as a racer/cruiser, per the company's own federal manufacturer filing.

Navigating the lineup

Identification matters more than usual with this make, because two of the three documented Chaser hulls kept sailing under other names after the original yard stopped production. A Chaser 29 may turn up in a listing as a Buccaneer 295 or a US 30, reproduced without credit to Peterson; a Chaser 33 may turn up as a Buccaneer 335, built by whichever yard took over the tooling. A listing search for "Chaser" alone will miss boats sold under either name, so confirm a candidate boat by its dimensions and design rather than by its badge — the full model directory on this page covers what is catalogued under the Chaser name itself.