Midget sailboats for sale

Buying a used Midget: confirm which boat it is first

A used "Midget" listing isn't shopping one category of boat. It could be a Dutch pocket cruiser meant for coastal family sailing, or it could be a small American sailing dinghy meant as a tender or trainer — two boats built on different continents by unrelated companies, with nothing but a name in common. Establishing which one a listing actually is comes before any question of era, size, or condition.

Which era to target

Within the Dutch cruising line, the boundary is the yard that built each model. The Midget 26 was the original commission: after the 20-foot Midget's builder, Polymore, went bankrupt in early 1981, Jachtwerf Gebr. de Kloet BV took over the prototype and had the first hull ready that December, moulding it in one piece rather than the earlier two-piece hull it replaced. The Midget 31 followed in 1990 as a larger, self-designed addition to the same yard's range, carrying proportionally more ballast. Both were built through the same one-family Kortenhoef yard, so the dividing line between them is size and design generation rather than a change of builder. The Dyer Midget dinghy sits outside that boundary altogether: a different builder, a different coast, and no comparable era markers to check a given hull against.

What to inspect across the range

YACHT's used-boat review of the Midget 26 offers the most direct guidance available. It found that engines dating to the 1980s are nearing the end of their service life, and that the space available for replacing one can be tight — worth checking before committing to a swap. The same review found that paint won't adhere where the yard's silicone sealant has been applied, a detail worth flagging before any refinishing work. And because roughly a quarter of the Midget 26s built were sold as bare hulls rather than yard-finished boats, interior fit and finish can vary from one example to the next; it's worth confirming which kind of build a specific hull is rather than assuming it matches a yard-completed boat. Spare parts and the original construction plans remain obtainable directly from the shipyard, per that same review.

Navigating the lineup

A buyer set on the Dutch cruising line is really choosing between the family-cruiser-sized 26 and the larger, higher-ballast 31 that followed it — different sizes from the same yard rather than different pedigrees. A buyer who turns up the Dyer-line listing is shopping something else entirely: a roughly eight-foot sailing dinghy, not a smaller version of the Dutch boats. The full model directory on this page breaks the range out for closer comparison.