CS sailboats for sale

Buying a used CS: a builder whose own history is unsettled, even where the boats aren't

A used CS carries a genuine Ontario racer-cruiser pedigree, but the company's own record is contested — sources disagree on when it was founded and even on the year it closed. For a buyer, that uncertainty is mostly about paperwork rather than the boats themselves: which designer's era built a given hull, and how that hull was maintained afterward, matters more than the CS name alone.

Which era to target

Buyers looking at a Raymond Wall-era hull — the CS 27, CS 33, or original CS 36 — should expect solid, uncored fiberglass below the waterline, so core-moisture testing there matters less than it would on a cored hull; any coring is limited to the deck house and cockpit. Buyers looking at a Tony Castro-era hull instead — the CS 34 or CS 36 Merlin — should plan a moisture survey more like a cored-hull inspection: the CS 34's topsides and deck panels use vacuum-bagged balsa coring, and the CS 36 Merlin goes further, with vacuum-bagged fiberglass or Kevlar over balsa above the waterline, laid over a structural grid glassed to the hull. Neither generation is the safer bet by default; they call for different survey approaches, and the survey should be scoped to the era of the specific hull rather than to the marque as a whole.

What to inspect across the range

Rudders are a recurring flag across the lineup: CS sailboats generally are known for water penetration in their rudders, and on the CS 33 specifically, water trapped inside a rudder can freeze and cause damage in northern climates unless it's drained and plugged seasonally. The hull-to-deck joint on the CS 33 and CS 36 Merlin uses a butyl-tape seal that oozes over time and needs periodic cleaning — normal maintenance rather than a defect, but worth budgeting for. Earlier CS 27 hulls carry a well-documented tendency to blister, with one estimate putting roughly half of surviving boats affected at some point, so it's worth asking whether a given hull has already had its gelcoat stripped and an epoxy barrier coat applied.

Navigating the lineup

Buyers who want Wall's solid-glass cruiser-racer feel should focus on the CS 27, CS 33, and original CS 36; buyers who prefer Castro's lighter, later construction — including the CS 36 Merlin's Euro-style layout — should look to the CS 30, CS 34, and CS 36 Merlin instead; and buyers after the largest cruising boats the company built should look to the Frers-designed CS 395 and CS 50. The full model directory on this page breaks the range out by hull so it's easier to compare within whichever of those groups fits how the boat will actually be sailed.