Crowther sailboats for sale

Buying a used Crowther: an owner-built hull, not a factory brand

A used Crowther listing isn't a boat that came off a Crowther-run production line — it's a boat built to naval architect Lock Crowther's plans by whoever bought them. Crowther Designs, the business Lock Crowther set up in 1966, ran on design work rather than manufacturing, and the great majority of the more than 2,500 boats built to his drawings were put together by individual owners in their own sheds and yards. That flips the usual brand-condition relationship: reputation here attaches to the designer, not to any shipyard, so how a particular hull was actually finished matters more than which Crowther model it is.

Which era to target

Crowther's earliest trimarans date to the 1970s: the Twiggy 31 was first built in 1970, and the Buccaneer sizes — 24 through 40 — followed over the next few years. The larger Spindrift series, from the 37 up to the 45, came out of the same decade. Lock Crowther kept designing until his death in 1993, and boats from later in his career show a different laminate — the Crowther 45, covered in a 1997 magazine review, moved to foam-cored construction with a mix of glass orientations layered into the hull, deck and bulkheads, a step beyond the foam-sandwich hulls and composite beams of his earlier trimaran work. A given boat's build date is a better guide to what's under the gelcoat than its model name alone.

What to inspect across the range

Because every hull traces back to a set of plans rather than a factory floor, don't assume one example of a model matches the next: Buccaneer- and Twiggy-sized boats turn up in both fiberglass and plywood depending on who built them, and the aluminum beams on the Buccaneer trimarans were designed to demount, so their fittings and attachment points are worth a close look on any example regardless of size. Treat each Crowther-designed boat as its own build rather than assuming a sister hull's fit and finish carries over.

Navigating the lineup

The range runs from small trimarans like the Twiggy 31 and Buccaneer 24 up to larger boats like the Spindrift 45 and the later Crowther 45 catamaran, so settling on size and hull type — trimaran or catamaran — is the first decision before comparing individual listings. From there, the full model directory on this page lays out build years for each design.