CS 36 Merlin Sailboats for Sale

Layouts on the Used Market

Owner three-cabin layouts are the more common on the used market, but both are available; ex-charter examples are common. The three-cabin arrangement itself places a forward cabin, main saloon, and aft quarter cabin, with a door that closes to form an actual separate cabin. The forward v-berth is slightly offset with the starboard side shortened by the head bulkhead, while the head sits across from a full-sized cedar-lined hanging locker. The main salon carries a fixed table with folding wings, a starboard settee that folds to a double, and massive water tanks under the berths holding up to 130 gallons. The galley is set far back with a Force 10 three-burner propane stove, double sink, and a 7.5-cubic-foot main ice box. The cockpit has curved seats, one huge locker, and an optional wide deep swim platform usually with a transom shower.

Equipment and Common Upgrades

On the used market, autopilot, chartplotter, shorthanded setup, AIS, gennaker, and asymmetric spinnaker are commonly fitted. Often seen are heating, solar, lithium batteries, inverter, electric winches, and bimini. Less common owner additions include spinnaker, freezer, hot water, dodger, and dinghy davits. From the factory, CS pre-wired the teak chainplate covers for stereo speakers on all boats, most came with Genoa furling, and most have a microwave built behind the ice box. The anchor well was designed for two anchors or a flush vertical windlass, and the standard Volvo Penta diesel is 25 hp with 28 hp and 43 hp turbo options having been available.

What to Inspect

The hull-deck joint is through bolted and sealed with a butyl tape that never hardens, and the oozing of this butyl tape is normal maintenance that owners expect to continue for years. A more consequential item is the traveller location by build period: most pre-1990 boats had it directly in front of the wheel, some later boats moved it to the bridge deck, and a late-1989 redesign placed it on the coach house with the mainsheet attaching only a third of the way back from the gooseneck—a coach-house traveller that makes proper sheeting difficult and is not healthy for the boom. The flat-bottom hull leaves very little bilge space for excess water, so check any drainage paths and sump areas closely. Confirm keel configuration, as four were offered by 1990: shoal, wing, deep, and performance bulb.

Availability and Buyer's Takeaway

These boats remain primarily concentrated in Southern Ontario and are typically found in the United States, Netherlands, Canada, and Mexico. Because the Merlin has its own micro market, comparable used CS 36 Merlins are few but loyal. A short checklist for the buyer:

• Verify it is the Castro Merlin, not the Wall CS 36 Traditional
• Confirm traveller configuration and avoid late-1989 coach-house setup if boom health matters
• Expect butyl tape ooze at the hull-deck joint as normal
• Match keel, rig, and engine options to intended cruising
• Inspect limited bilge space and any water-management details