Rossiter sailboats for sale

Buying a used Rossiter: expect a one-off, not a production hull

A used Rossiter isn't a standardized boat pulled off a mold in identical runs. Rossiter Yachts built its Curlew and its smaller sibling, the Pintail, to individual commission, which means two hulls of the same model can differ from each other in ways a buyer needs to confirm rather than assume - this is a small yard's bespoke work, not a marque with a fixed specification sheet.

Which era to target

The Curlew's production run was a long one - Yachting Monthly, testing the boat in June 1982, two years after its 1980 launch, already noted that "quite a few" were around. Because Rossiter built to individual commission rather than to a fixed production schedule, there's no clean model-year cutoff to chase the way there might be with a mass-produced design; confirming a given hull's actual build date and specification does more for a buyer than targeting a narrow window of years.

What to inspect across the range

Because each Curlew was built to individual specification, confirm which rig and keel setup a given hull actually has - cutter or sloop rig, deep or shallow long keel, or centreboard or bilge keels were all buyer options, and they meaningfully change how a boat sails and where it can go. On construction, Yachting Monthly's assessment of the joinery is worth carrying into a survey too: it judged the Curlew's woodwork "a reflection of the shipwright's, rather than the joiner's, art" - traditional, labor-intensive work that calls for a surveyor comfortable with wooden interior joinery rather than production-boat fit-out.

Navigating the lineup

With only two named models from the yard - the smaller Pintail and the larger Curlew - the choice comes down to size and intended use more than picking between competing lines. The full model directory on this page breaks the range down hull by hull.