Condor 55 Buyer's Guide
Shopping the used Condor 55 means looking at a late-seventies Helmut Stöberl design built in several hundred examples as a light, lifting-keel trailer-sailer. These are compact fractional sloops of about 18 feet overall with a 16.4-foot waterline, meant for sheltered cruising rather than offshore work, and the brokerage stock you meet will reflect that origin.
Layouts on the Used Market
The Condor 55 is a monohull with a solid fiberglass hull and deck and an iron ballast of 595 pounds against a 1,654-pound displacement. Below she carries four berths, the only interior figure stated, within a 7.35-foot beam. The drop keel draws as little as 1.15 feet and as much as 1.45 feet loaded, so most used examples will show a centerboard or lifting blade trunk through the cabin or cockpit sole rather than a fixed fin.
Equipment and Common Upgrades
The boat's as-found propulsion is almost always an outboard bracket at the transom, since she typically needs only a 2 to 3 hp unit or a 34 to 41 pound-thrust electric motor. Buyers should treat any installed generator or watermaker as an owner addition rather than factory kit, and judge the value of such upgrades by the condition of the mount and wiring rather than the name on the case. Beyond that, the small scale of the design leaves little room for elaborate refit clusters; canvas and sail-handling gear tend to be simple, and navigation kit is whatever a previous owner bolted to the bulkhead.
What to Inspect
The record on the Condor 55 is thin on defects, but the lifting drop keel arrangement deserves close attention: confirm the pivot, trunk, and pennant show no structural cracking or water ingress, since a compromised trunk is the one failure point native to the design. Check the solid fiberglass hull and deck for the usual osmotic or impact damage, and verify the 2 to 3 hp outboard or electric motor mount is sound. The capsize screening value of 2.45 is a design fact rather than a fault, but it tells you the boat is not an offshore candidate and should not be inspected or priced as one.
Availability and Buyer's Takeaway
The typical market for these boats is the Netherlands, where most examples are likely to surface. For a shopper, the short checklist is: confirm the keel trunk integrity, verify the outboard or electric drive and its mount, and accept the four-berth layout as the whole accommodation story. Buy her as a sheltered-water weekender with a proven several-hundred-boat production history, not as a bluewater cruiser.
Price & volume trends
Monthly asking-price and listing-volume trends for the Condor 55. The line shows the median ask each month; the bars show how many listings appeared.
Monthly breakdown · 1 row
| Month | Listings | Median ask | Δ vs. last mo. |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 26 | 1 | $4,953 | — |
Where they're listed
Condor 55 listings appear across 1 country. Netherlands has the most listings with 1.
Country view
1 listings · 1 country| Country | Median ask | Listings · 12 mo | Active · 90 d | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | $4,953 | 1 | 0 | 100.0% |
