Buying a used Liberty: confirm which company built it first
A used "Liberty" listing could point to either of two unrelated companies, and almost nothing else about the boat can be evaluated sensibly until that's settled. One is Peter and Jo Hoyt's Liberty Yachts, a Seattle-run operation whose heavy-displacement cruising hulls came out of the Shin Fa yard in Taiwan. The other is Hunter Boats Ltd of Essex, England, whose David Thomas-designed Hunter Liberty is a compact, centreboard trailer-sailer built for entirely different waters and a different kind of sailor. Neither company had any hand in the other's boats, and neither carries the other's construction methods or intended use -- so identify the builder before weighing anything about condition or fit.
Which era to target
The American line traces to a Shin Fa hull that began life as an extended Peterson 44 mold; the Hoyts fitted it with a new deck to create the Liberty 458, then commissioned the larger Liberty 49 when East Coast buyers wanted more room for equipment. That run closed out in 1989, when the last hull left the Shin Fa yard amid pressures that squeezed the business from several directions at once -- unionization in Taiwan, a manufacturing pivot toward mainland China, a weaker dollar, and a luxury tax that added cost to larger yachts -- rather than any single cause. The British Hunter Liberty dates to a single design year, 1979, when David Thomas adapted his memories of a Royal Naval Montague Whaler's stern into a modern trailer-sailer; its gaff-rigged Minstrel-class sister shares the identical hull, keel, and rudder, so a buyer comparing the two should expect structural parity even where rig and finish differ.
Navigating the lineup
Size sorts the two companies almost perfectly: anything in the mid-40s to high-40s range is the Taiwan-built American cruiser, while anything in the low-20s is the British trailer-sailer or its Minstrel sibling. A smaller American-attributed hull also appears in the lineup with no confirmed design history beyond its builder name, so treat any Liberty outside the two well-documented size bands with extra scrutiny -- the full model directory on this page breaks out every hull by length and year.
Where they're listed
Liberty listings appear across 5 countries. United States has the most listings with 10 (62.5%), followed by United Kingdom and Greece.
Country view
16 listings · 5 countries| Country | Median ask | Listings · 12 mo | Active · 90 d | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $49,000 | 10 | 1 | 62.5% |
| United Kingdom | $7,779 | 2 | 0 | 12.5% |
| Greece | $267,837 | 2 | 0 | 12.5% |
| Canada | $147,571 | 1 | 0 | 6.3% |
| Panama | $88,000 | 1 | 0 | 6.3% |
All Liberty models
3 models grouped by length overall. Open any model to see recent asking prices and active listings.