International sailboats for sale

Buying a used International: identify the class before you buy

A used listing under the International name is not a single brand's used boat -- it is one of several unrelated one-design racing classes (the Dragon, the International One Design, the 6 Metre, the Folkboat, the H-Boat, the 12 Foot Dinghy, and others), or it is a small-production pocket cruiser from an unrelated California builder, International Marine, which makes the West Wight Potter 15, West Wight Potter 19, and Sanibel 18. The first task in evaluating any listing is figuring out which of those it actually is, because the designer, the builder, the construction era, and the available support network are different in every case.

Which era to target

Era pins down who actually built a given hull. On a Dragon, whether the boat predates or postdates its early-1970s shift to metal spars and glass-fibre construction changes what a survey should even be looking for -- wood, rig, and fastenings on one side of that line, laminate and core condition on the other. A Folkboat is a similar fork: it is either a hull from the class's original Swedish production run, which wound down in the mid-1980s, or a newer hull from the unrelated builder that took the design up again decades later -- two different manufacturers separated by a long gap, not one continuous line. The West Wight Potter line runs from a 1960 plywood original through a fiberglass Potter 15 by 1980 and into the Potter 19, in production in some form since 1971 and built by International Marine since the early 1990s, over which run the deck coring changed from plywood to balsa. The Sanibel 18 sits in an even narrower window: 169 examples were completed across just 1985 to 1988, passing through a series of different builders -- including International Marine -- under the Sanibel 17 and 18 names in that short span.

Identify the builder and class association

For a racing class, check whether an active class association still stands behind the boat. The Dragon is governed by the International Dragon Association under World Sailing rules, with roughly 30 national associations beneath it; the H-Boat has held World Sailing international status since 1977 and is built by two separate licensed builders. That association is where rule compliance, spares, and a racing fleet actually come from, and it is specific to each class -- there is no single International customer-support line to call. For a West Wight Potter or Sanibel 18, the question is different: which builder, and which era of that builder, produced the specific hull, since both models passed through more than one manufacturer over their production histories.

Navigating the lineup

Given how wide this catalog runs -- one-design dinghies and keelboats on one side, two small production cruiser lines on the other -- start by placing a listing in one of those two worlds before comparing anything else. From there, narrow by era and builder using the full model directory on this page rather than assuming any two "International" listings share a construction standard.