RM sailboats for sale

Buying a used RM: what an unusual hull means for a buyer

Buying a used RM means buying into a construction method most other production yards don't use: chined hulls of epoxy-infused okoume marine plywood, painted rather than gelcoated, a technique RM has built since 1989 and refined for decades with the Marc Lombard Design Group. Reviewers have found real upside in that choice — Yachting World called the plywood-epoxy finish durable, rot- and osmosis-resistant, and easy to repair — but also real cost: a reviewer at no-frills-sailing.com put an epoxy/plywood hull at around 20 percent more expensive to build than a traditionally GRP-moulded one. For a used-boat buyer, that trade-off means condition and build quality matter more than on a typical GRP yacht: a well-kept painted-plywood hull can outlast the norm, but a neglected one carries risks a standard survey checklist won't fully cover.

Which era to target

The RM 1050's 1998 launch marks a dividing line worth knowing: every RM built since has carried hull ports that earlier models lacked. The RM 1050 itself — produced from 1998 to 2011, in about 115 copies — is well documented as its own early generation, and buyers considering one should treat it that way rather than assume it matches later boats' finish or fit-out. There's also a naming trap partway through the range: after the original RM1070's run, RM completely redesigned the boat below decks and relaunched it as the RM1070+, so a listing's exact designation, not just its base model number, determines what's actually below decks.

What to inspect across the range

Boatnews' retrospective on the RM 1050 flagged several points worth a surveyor's attention on that generation: watch for water infiltration, protect portholes in hot weather, note that its CP epoxy hull is less resistant to small shocks than later laminates, and mind the exposed structural framing (barrotage) below decks, which the review warned can bruise an inattentive head. Separately, Yachting Monthly's reviews of both the RM1070 and the RM890 flagged the fit-out below decks as a recurring soft spot across models — the kind of complaint RM's own below-decks redesign of the 1070, which produced the 1070+, was aimed at addressing.

Navigating the lineup

RM's current range runs five models from 28 to 45 feet, and the yard's own framing — a small shipyard building 20 to 25 boats a year, according to sales and marketing manager César Dohy — is a reminder that any two RMs represent different chapters of the same construction identity rather than one continuous line. Buyers should settle on a size band and a design era together, since the yard's approach to hull ports and belowdecks fit-out has evolved even as the plywood-epoxy method itself has stayed constant. The full model directory on this page compares specific models, years, and lengths within that range.