Fuji sailboats for sale

Buying a used Fuji: a full-keel ketch from a yard that closed young

Buying a used Fuji means buying a boat from a yard that built for less than a decade and has been gone for decades longer than it operated -- there's no factory to call, and support runs through owners and independent surveyors rather than a builder relationship. What continuity the brand has runs backward, not forward: Fuji's own hull molds and much of its early workforce came from Far East Yachts, the predecessor company that built the Mariner line on the same Yokosuka ground before folding. That inherited-mold history is worth knowing going in, because hull provenance, not paperwork, is what actually separates these boats from their nearest relatives.

Which era to target

The lineup splits by design house more than by model year. The 32, 35, and 45 are full-keel ketches out of John G. Alden's firm, sharing a heavy, traditional cruising profile -- the 35 alone spanning a nine-year run from 1973 to 1982. The 40 stands apart: a Sparkman & Stephens-designed sloop with a modern underbody, built in far smaller numbers -- just over a dozen -- late in the company's life, with the first seven begun before the design plans themselves were finished. Buyers set on the classic full-keel ketch handling should target the Alden boats; buyers wanting a faster, more contemporary sailing platform under the same builder's name should look specifically for a 40, and expect it to be hard to find.

What to inspect across the range

SAILING Magazine flags the 35 as susceptible to water infusion and deck delamination -- worth probing with a moisture meter regardless of a listing's cosmetic condition. Cruising World's review of a 40 found engine access excellent forward and aft but poor on either side, and noted the deck lacks efficient scuppers; the reviewer's own fixes -- replacing original plastic deadlights with opening ports and adding bracing to the bow pulpit, gate stanchions, and stern pulpit -- are worth asking whether a given boat has already had done. On the 32, naval architect Ted Brewer suggested its shoal draft could use additional ballast before an ocean passage, a point worth weighing for buyers planning bluewater use rather than coastal cruising.

Navigating the lineup

With the range split cleanly between Alden's full-keel ketches and the single S&S sloop, narrowing a Fuji search mostly means choosing a design philosophy before comparing individual boats -- the full model directory on this page sorts by size across both lines.