Flying Tiger sailboats for sale

Buying a used Flying Tiger: a single-yard, single-owner build, so condition does the talking

Flying Tiger came from one builder selling one design through one company: Bill Stevens conceived it, sold every boat through his own Hiptrader, and had every hull built at a single yard in China. That concentration cuts both ways for a used buyer. The design's public, community-tested origin and its class-racing pedigree are real, but with roughly 100 of the original 10-Meters built in about two years, there's a narrow production window behind any given hull rather than decades of a manufacturer working out problems across model years — which makes a given boat's own condition and history more telling than its name.

Which era to target

The 10-Meter was the larger of the two runs — roughly 100 boats built in about two years starting in 2005 — while the smaller 7.5 followed in 2009 from the same Han Sheng yard in Xiamen. The construction issues documented below trace to that original 10-Meter run and the test that examined it soon after, so they're most relevant to early boats from that window rather than a claim about the lineup as a whole.

What to inspect across the range

Sailing World's test of the 10-Meter flagged a cluster of issues on the early boats worth checking on any hull from that run: under-specced tillers, underbuilt transoms, and rudder hardware that wasn't originally up to the loads of the boat's outboard-hung rudder. The same test found construction spots where daylight was visible through the laminate in low-stress areas, nonskid the testers called adequate but not great, and outboard well doors prone to popping open under sail — plus a retractable bowsprit that can let water seep in without an aftermarket gasket. The class sails that shipped with the earliest boats were also singled out as poorly designed and built, a detail worth asking about if a boat's sail inventory hasn't been updated since it left the yard.

Navigating the lineup

Size is the real dividing line in this lineup: the roughly 33-foot 10-Meter that defined the brand, against the more compact, roughly 25-foot 7.5 that followed it four years later from the same builder. Buyers set on the bigger, more established boat and buyers who want the smaller, later design are choosing between two very different hulls from the same small yard — the full model directory on this page breaks down the rest of the specifics.