Tofinou sailboats for sale

Buying a used Tofinou: a small-batch French daysailer builder, where hull era matters more than ownership history

A used Tofinou is a bet on a yard that has never built more than about 20 boats a year — every hull is closer to hand-built than mass-produced, and that changes what "condition" means on a survey. The team that builds them has stayed in place through two ownership changes since the 1987 founding, from the transfer to the Experton-Revollier group in 2015 through EXEL Industries' 2021 acquisition, which matters more for parts and service continuity than for what to inspect on any specific hull. What matters more for a buyer is which design era and which construction generation built the boat in front of them.

Which era to target

The clearest line in the range runs through its designers. The classic core — the 8, 9.5, 10, 12, and 16 — came from Michel Joubert and his partner Bernard Nivelt; the newer 9.7 came from Michele Molino, who took over the range's design after Joubert's death, working alongside Peugeot Design Lab on the deck and cockpit. That handoff also marks a construction boundary, since the 9.7's build departs from the classic-era formula. The yard's founding model, the Tofinou 7 — molded from a recovered 1928 daysailer hull, with 230 built after the yard's 1987 launch — sits at the other end of the range's history and is worth targeting on its own terms as the line's original.

What to inspect across the range

The one clear construction-era boundary in the range is worth using as an inspection checklist rather than treating "mahogany trim" as one category across every model. On a classic-era hull, ask how the solid mahogany coamings and coachroof have been maintained: cared for well, that trim can go a long time without needing attention — Practical Boat Owner's reviewer found an eight-year-old Tofinou 7 whose varnished mahogany showed no sign of needing revarnish since the day it was built — but it remains solid wood exposed to weather, not a low-maintenance veneer. On a 9.7, the coamings and coachroof are veneer-covered composite instead of solid mahogany; a review of the model noted the mahogany-finished coamings are removable specifically so they don't need to be touched up or revarnished on the boat.

Navigating the lineup

The range spans a 23-foot founding model up through a 52-foot flagship, with several sizes in between — sized more than styled apart, since every Tofinou carries the same daysailer proportions and hand-finished trim rather than distinct sub-lines. Start from size and era rather than model name, then use the full model directory on this page to compare specifics once those two are settled.