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Fales Sailboats

Explore Fales sailboats and the details behind each model. If you are shopping for a Fales sailboat, we keep an eye out for Used Fales Sailboats.

Model ↕Listings ↓Year Built ↕LOA (ft) ↕Beam (ft) ↕Draft (ft) ↕Disp. (lbs) ↕Hull ↕Designer ↕Rig ↕Keel ↕
Fales 32 Navigator4 for sale197431.67 ft11.17 ft3.5 ft17,000 lbsMonohullWilliam Crealock/Charles F. StreetCutterLong
Fales 38 Explorer—197838 ft12 ft5 ft23,500 lbsMonohullCharles Street/AldenKetchLong
Fales 38 Navigator—197738 ft12 ft5 ft22,750 lbsMonohullCharles Street/AldenKetchLong

Fales sailboats: a small Rhode Island builder shaped by one tall sailor

Fales left behind a thin paper trail — a single detailed account of one boat and an obituary for its founder — but what survives centers on a cruising ketch built tall enough for its builder's own frame.

Origins and ownership

John R. "Johnny" Fales, a racing sailor and yacht builder, ran the company as Fales Yacht Sales — not the "Fales Yachts" name that appears in some sources, which conflicts with his own Princeton obituary. He turned to boatbuilding after 23 years in an earlier career, building sailboats and motor sailers. Under that name he built the Fales Explorer and Fales Navigator lines in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, according to a Latitude 38 reader's account, a run that extends slightly later than other records of the yard show. Fales died July 20, 1993, after three years on dialysis. Beyond boatbuilding, he also built and ran a 350-slip marina in the Old F.T. Boat Harbor at Melville, in Newport, Rhode Island.

The Fales 38: a tall man's cruising ketch

The clearest picture of a Fales boat comes from a sailor who wrote to Latitude 38 in January 2002 about a Fales 38: a ketch, well laid out for cruising. Its most distinctive feature — 6-foot-5-inch headroom and an unusually long V-berth — the writer traced directly to Fales himself being a tall man. The same account judged the 38s not competitive for racing, but credited them with interior volume typical of 40-footers, and the same letter mentioned several sistership Fales 38s cruising the East Coast at that time. Design credit for the Fales lineup, where it appears elsewhere, could not be confirmed against the design offices' own records, so none is named here.

Who Fales is for

Fales's lineup runs from the 32-foot Navigator (1974) up to the 38-foot Navigator (1977) and 38-foot Explorer (1978) — a compact range for cruising sailors drawn to a well-laid-out ketch with unusually generous headroom, rather than a builder with a long production run or a well-documented pedigree. What's confirmed about the yard comes from just two sources, so a buyer curious about a particular hull's history should expect the boat itself, not the record, to carry most of the story.

Frequently asked questions

01Who founded Fales, and what did he do before building boats?+
John R. "Johnny" Fales, a racing sailor, ran the company as Fales Yacht Sales — not "Fales Yachts," a name that turns up in some databases but not in his own obituary. He turned to building sailboats and motor sailers after 23 years in an earlier career. He died July 20, 1993, after three years on dialysis.
02What models did Fales build?+
Fales built two lines, the Explorer and the Navigator, in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s. The lineup includes the 32-foot Navigator (1974), the 38-foot Navigator (1977) and the 38-foot Explorer (1978).
03What is the Fales 38 like to sail or cruise?+
A sailor's account published in Latitude 38 in January 2002 described the Fales 38 as a ketch, well laid out for cruising, with an unusually tall 6-foot-5-inch headroom and a long V-berth. The same account judged the 38s not competitive for racing but credited them with interior volume typical of 40-footers.
04Who designed Fales sailboats?+
Some catalogs credit Fales models to well-known naval architects, but those credits could not be confirmed against the design offices' own records, so no designer is named here.
05Did John Fales do anything besides build boats?+
Yes. He also built and operated a 350-slip marina in the Old F.T. Boat Harbor at Melville, in Newport, Rhode Island.