Olson sailboats for sale

Buying a used Olson: the model name doesn't tell you the whole boat

An Olson isn't one uniform product -- on two of the six models, the builder itself changed mid-run, and what changed went well beyond the name on the boat. You'll also see the builder called by different names depending on the source -- Pacific Yachts, Pacific Boats, Olson Yachts -- so don't expect a listing to be consistent about it; treat those as pointing to the same production era, not a single confirmed company. The appeal is a genuine ULDB (ultralight displacement boat) pedigree, almost all of it from a single designer's hand, backed by a documented ocean-racing record on more than one model -- but which hull you're looking at, and who actually built it, matters as much as the name on the transom.

Which era to target

On the Olson 34, the difference is structural, not cosmetic. Hull #1 was built to the model's originally specified cored hull and deck, before the builder ran into financial trouble; every hull built afterward, once the tooling had moved to Ericson Yachts, was laid up by hand without a core and weighs more as a result. A Pacific-built 34 and one of the 37 later Ericson boats are not the same boat underfoot. The Olson 25 changed hands the same way, and it's worth knowing which era a given 25 comes from before you look closely at deck hardware and construction. On the 911S, the difference sits upstream of construction entirely -- it's the only model in the range George Olson didn't design himself, having started life as naval architect Carl Schumacher's Capo 30 before its rename.

What to inspect across the range

On the later, Ericson-built Olson 25s, sailingmagazine.net reported that the added headliner made it harder to move around belowdecks and to re-bed deck hardware, and that the stanchions cant inward, making the boat harder to hike out. Confirm which builder produced the specific hull before you rely on either detail.

Navigating the lineup

Six models, from a 25-footer up to a 40, cover most of the range with a single designer's ULDB thinking; the 911S is the deliberate exception. Use the full model directory on this page to compare sizes and years, but weigh any listing against who actually built that specific hull, especially on the 34 and 25, where the builder changes more than the paperwork.