Watkins sailboats for sale

Buying a used Watkins: three companies built this lineup

A used Watkins is really a bet on one of three different companies that operated under the same name. The founding brothers designed and built the earliest hulls in-house in Clearwater; Al Larson's Auroraglas operation then reworked acquired Columbia and Coronado tooling into a second generation of Watkins models; and the McLaughlin Body Co. carried the last boats through to the yard's 1989 close. Because construction detailing changed at each handoff, the era a hull comes from tells you more about what you're buying than the model name alone.

Which era to target

Boats from the founding-brothers years - the W17, W23/W23 XL, and the W27 - were built between 1973 and the 1979 sale, designed largely in-house except for the W27, drawn by outside naval architect Walter Scott and later the company's best-selling model. Boats from the Auroraglas years that followed - the W36/W36C, W25, W32, and W33 - started life as reworked Columbia or Coronado tooling rather than new designs, modified in-house with features like all-opening ports and teak bulkheads that became standard across the range. The W29, renamed W30 after a 1987 transom change, spans the transition into McLaughlin ownership and carried the company through to its final boats in November 1989.

What to inspect across the range

Good Old Boat's review of the W27 flags that hull-to-deck joints on boats built before 1979 use an earlier "shoebox" arrangement prone to leaking, while boats built after 1979 use the outward-flanged joint that became standard across later Watkins models - worth checking closely on any older founding-era hull. On the W25, reviewer Steve Henkel judged the rudder depth shallow enough that it "might give control problems under adverse weather conditions," a detail worth confirming on a sea trial.

Navigating the lineup

Founding-era hulls suit buyers who want the simpler, smaller boats the brothers designed and sold directly; Auroraglas-era hulls trade that straightforward pedigree for construction the builder treated as substantially reengineered rather than a relabeled stock hull. The full model directory on this page breaks out the size and year range of each.