Menger sailboats for sale

Buying a used Menger: the type is the decision, not the brand

A used Menger is a small fiberglass catboat, in one of four sizes, from a family yard that closed for good in the early 2000s. There is no ongoing warranty or factory support to weigh, so the real evaluation is the boat itself: its condition, and how well the catboat type suits what you want to sail. That type is the actual selling point — a broad-beamed boat carried on a single gaff sail, shoal enough in draft to work skinny harbors and creeks, and simple enough to singlehand.

Which era to target

For a buyer, the four sizes roughly sort by age. The 17-footer dates to the company's earliest production, 1983, the direct descendant of the catboats Andrew Menger first sketched as a teenager. A mold-destroying fire in 1989 forced a design response: the Cat 19, launched the following year, is a boat one reviewer later called an "expanded and improved" 17. The smallest boat in the lineup, the Cat 15, wasn't added until 2001, near the very end of the yard's run. A 17 buys into the original design generation, a 19 into the post-fire refinement, and a 15 into the company's final years.

Navigating the lineup

The four sizes span a fairly narrow range — 15 to 23 feet — so the choice mostly comes down to how much boat you want to handle and where you'll keep it, not a wide gap in vintage or design lineage. One practical wrinkle worth knowing: after the company closed, its former manager took over the molds for the 15- and 19-foot boats and kept building them under a different name, Thompson Cat, which matters mainly for anyone thinking ahead about hull support on those two sizes specifically. The full model directory on this page breaks out all four by year and length.