Buying a used Performance: one name, three very different boats
A used boat carrying the Performance name is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, a Laser or ILCA Dinghy - the fixed one-design racing dinghy that put the company in business. But the same badge also covers a family-boat range picked up in a 2025 acquisition, and a long-discontinued keelboat built decades ago by an unrelated predecessor company. The first question in a used-Performance search is which of those three a given listing actually is, not just what condition it's in.
Which era to target
Unlike most used-boat searches, the one-design Laser/ILCA doesn't really have distinct construction eras to weigh against each other - the ILCA Construction Manual holds every hull to the same fiberglass specification regardless of build year, which is why hull vintage carries less weight here than it would shopping any other make. What has changed over time is rig size: the original rig was joined by a smaller radial option made class-legal in 1992, and a still-smaller 4.7-square-metre rig in 2001, so matching rig to sailor weight matters more than matching hull vintage. The Ocean Play boats - Bug, Pico, Vago, Bahia - are a separate, more recently acquired range rather than a different "era" of the same design, and the Laser 28 keelboat is its own closed chapter, built only from 1984 to 1990 and out of production for over three decades.
What to inspect across the range
Two issues recur in an owner account published by Sailing Magazine, both tied to hard club and Olympic-level racing rather than to any single hull generation: boats subjected to that level of use are described as prone to going soft over time, and racing sails on the same boats wear out fast enough that the owner reports budgeting for roughly twenty a season. Neither is specific to a particular year of construction, so a boat's racing history is worth asking about alongside its build date.
Navigating the lineup
For a buyer set on the one-design racing boat, "Performance" narrows to a single choice - the Laser/ILCA - with rig size the only real variant to pick between. Buyers after something more casual should look to the Ocean Play range instead: the Bug, Pico, Vago, and Bahia are family and club day-boats built by the rotomold method, a construction approach distinct from the racing dinghy's fixed fiberglass specification. The Laser 28 sits outside both categories, a keelboat from an unrelated era of the company's history that won't appear alongside current dinghy production; the full model directory on this page separates all of them out by name.
Where they're listed
Performance listings appear across 21 countries. United States has the most listings with 37 (27.6%), followed by France and Germany.
Country view
134 listings · 21 countries| Country | Median ask | Listings · 12 mo | Active · 90 d | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | $8,000 | 37 | 10 | 27.6% |
| France | $130,542 | 17 | 6 | 12.7% |
| Germany | $142,198 | 15 | 3 | 11.2% |
| Switzerland | $3,726 | 10 | 5 | 7.5% |
| Greece | $221,456 | 9 | 4 | 6.7% |
| Italy | $110,728 | 9 | 3 | 6.7% |
| Spain | $128,095 | 7 | 3 | 5.2% |
| Netherlands | $116,439 | 7 | 3 | 5.2% |
| Croatia | $97,848 | 4 | 0 | 3.0% |
| Sweden | $180,548 | 4 | 2 | 3.0% |
| Belgium | $173,668 | 3 | 1 | 2.2% |
| United Kingdom | $158,062 | 2 | 0 | 1.5% |
| 9 other countries | — | 10 | 3 | 7.5% |
All Performance models
2 models grouped by length overall. Open any model to see recent asking prices and active listings.