Corsair sailboats for sale

Buying a used Corsair: the folding system is the boat

A used Corsair is, more than most sailboats, a purchase of a mechanism rather than just a hull. The folding trimaran concept — Farrier's original patented system on the smaller boats, carried forward in various forms across the range — is what makes these boats trailerable and marina-friendly, and it's also the system whose condition matters most to a buyer. A Corsair with tired upholstery and a sound, well-maintained folding system is a far better buy than a cosmetically clean one with neglected beams, akas, or pivot hardware, since that system carries real sailing loads every time the boat is rigged. Corsair also occupies a narrower niche than most of the used market: buyers are choosing multihull performance and shallow-draft access over interior volume, so folding-system condition, trailer readiness, and rig condition matter more here than the usual monohull comparison points.

Which era to target

Corsair's history splits into two distinct manufacturing eras worth knowing before comparing boats. Pre-2006 boats came out of Chula Vista, California, hand-laminated using the vacuum-bagging methods John Walton's early crew developed; most trace to Ian Farrier's board, though the F-31 started life under Australian builder OSTAC before U.S. production rights moved to Corsair. Boats built after the 2006 Vietnam relocation — the Dash 750, Sprint 750, 760 family, Cruze 970, C37, and 880 — belong to a separate manufacturing chapter, and later designs, like the Pulse 600, moved past Farrier's design lineage entirely to outside naval architects such as François Perus. Knowing which era and design lineage produced a given hull matters more with Corsair than with most brands, since the company changed both ownership and factory location more than once.

What to inspect across the range

A few issues recur across models rather than showing up on just one boat. Early-production beam and aka problems drew a factory response on more than one model: a batch of F-24s had oil-canning in the beams from improperly catalyzed PVC foam, since recalled and retrofitted, and early Corsair 36s could crack at the inboard end of the forward beam until the company replaced the original fiberglass block with a stronger aluminum casting across all boats — worth confirming a given hull received whichever fix applied. Rudder performance at speed is another recurring theme Practical Sailor flagged repeatedly: cavitation at high speed on the F-24, a rudder that lost its grip at high speeds on the F-28, and trailing edges that needed fairing on the F-31. None of these are dealbreakers on their own, but a folding trimaran's rudder and beam hardware both see real structural loads, so they're worth closer attention than the same components on a fixed-hull monohull.

Navigating the lineup

The range splits roughly into two size bands: small, highly trailerable trimarans in the low-to-mid-20-foot class — the F-24 family, Dash 750, Sprint 750, and 760 — built for ramp launching and easy towing, and larger performance cruisers from the F-31 and Cruze 970 up through the 36, C37, and 880, which trade some trailerability for interior volume and passage-making capability. Let intended use, not size alone, decide which band fits, then compare specific hulls on the full model directory on this page.