Trapper sailboats for sale

Buying a used Trapper: choose an era and a design pedigree, not just a model number

The Trapper badge doesn't guarantee a single design lineage the way a boat from one in-house yard would - the name was applied to boats designed by at least five different people and, eventually, built by companies that had nothing to do with the original Poole yard. The strongest of those lineages, the licensed Canadian C&C 27 behind the Trapper 500 and 501, is worth seeking out on its own merits; the risk with a Trapper is assuming that pedigree extends to every boat wearing the name, including the later ones built after the original yard stopped moulding its own hulls.

Which era to target

The 500 and 501 sit closest to the source: Anstey Yachts began building the C&C 27 design under licence in 1972, and the boat carried through largely unchanged until it became the more comfortable 501 - around 1980 according to Practical Boat Owner, or 1981 according to Trapper's own history, which also notes the 501 added a Yanmar 8 diesel. A second, in-house design era followed alongside it through the 1970s: Bruce Kirby's 300, Ed Dubois's Star Flash-derived 240/250 and later T250/TS240, and Rob Humphreys's 950, all still built at Trapper's own Poole facility. A buyer should treat anything from the early 1980s onward as a different manufacturing chain entirely - once currency pressure forced the Poole moulding shop to close, hulls came from North Shore Yachts of Emsworth, and by 1984 and 1987 the Trapper 36 and TS42 were built in Italy and Malta rather than England.

What to inspect across the range

Practical Boat Owner's review of a Trapper 500 is worth reading before viewing one: the reviewer found no history of osmosis in the class, a genuinely reassuring point on a hull this old, but flagged that the original 500's rudder can be heavy to handle, especially under power - worth judging for yourself on a sea trial, and worth comparing against a 501, whose more vertical, rectangular rudder was a later revision of the same blade.

Navigating the lineup

The C&C-licensed 500 and 501 are the obvious starting point for a buyer prioritizing pedigree in a roughly 27-foot boat. The smaller in-house-era designs - the 300, the Dubois-derived family, and the 950 - suit a buyer after a lighter, more overtly racing-oriented Trapper instead. The late Italian-built 36 and TS42 are a different proposition again, worth judging on their own construction rather than on the Poole yard's reputation. The full model directory on this page breaks the range down individually.