Controversy 36 Sailboats for Sale & Market Overview

Drawing Diagram

Builder drawing

Hull type

Monohull · fin

Rig

Yawl

LOA

37.25' · 11.35 m

Displ.

11,500 lbs · 5,216 kg

First year

1960

The Controversy 36 is the flagship of the "Controversy" line, a series of yachts that challenged midcentury naval architecture with its radical embrace of light displacement and reverse sheer. Designed by E. Farnham Butler and Cyrus Hamlin at Mount Desert Yacht Yard, the model is famously a "37foot boat sold as a 36footer," with an actual length overall of 37' 3". The design was born from Butler’s desire for a family cruiser that could be handled with ease—a philosophy he famously termed designing for the "velocity of children." Built primarily using stripplanked cedar and mahogany, the Controversy 36 combined the weightsaving benefits of modern wood construction with a hull form that prioritized interior volume and seakindliness over traditional aesthetic norms.