Feeling 446 Sailboats for Sale & Market Overview

The Feeling 446, designed by the prolific Philippe Briand and launched in the late 1980s by the Kirié shipyard, represents the zenith of the builder’s "performance cruiser" era. Emerging at a time when French naval architecture was shifting toward voluminous hulls that did not sacrifice speed, the 446 was positioned as a flagship capable of blue-water transit and coastal exploration alike. Built with a solid fiberglass hull and a sandwich deck, the model was offered in two distinct underwater configurations: a traditional deep fin keel and the innovative dériveur intégral (integral centerboard) system. The latter allowed a vessel of nearly 45 feet to reduce its draft to just over 3 feet, enabling it to enter shallow lagoons or beach in tidal zones—a capability that became a hallmark of the Philippe Briand design philosophy for the Feeling range.