Wellington sailboats for sale

Buying a used Wellington: one custom yard, not a factory brand

A used Wellington didn't come off a production line - it came out of Bill Wellington's own Jacksonville, Florida yard, where he and his wife, Boltie, built each hull to order rather than to a fixed catalog. There's no separate design office and no parts department standing behind the name the way there is with a mass-production brand, so a buyer's confidence in a given hull rests on that boat's own documented history and condition rather than on a factory paper trail. Treating each Wellington as an individually built boat, and confirming its own record accordingly, is the starting point for buying one well.

Which era to target

The newest hull carrying the name is a documented one: a power boat Bill Wellington completed in 2016, when he was 88 years old, is his last recorded build. That puts the yard's working life squarely inside living memory rather than confined to a distant production era, a reminder that "Wellington" can span a hull from very late in one man's career just as easily as one from decades earlier. A buyer should treat a given hull's actual build year, not the Wellington name alone, as the anchor for what construction and specification to expect, since the yard never worked to a fixed, evolving catalog the way a larger manufacturer would.

Navigating the lineup

Wellington Boats, Inc. built both sail and power yachts to order, so a buyer should expect the lineup to split along that line first, size and era second. Because the yard worked custom rather than to a fixed catalog, no two hulls should be assumed to share the same construction or specification just because they carry the same name - a survey grounded in that specific boat's own history is what actually establishes what a buyer is getting, more than the builder's own reputation as a naval architect can. The full model directory on this page breaks the lineup down hull by hull.