Fountaine Pajot Saona 47 Sailboats for Sale

Layouts on the Used Market

Owner three-cabin and charter four-cabin versions are both well represented among used boats, and ex-charter examples are common. The Maestro layout gives the whole port hull to an owner’s suite with a double berth aft, desk and storage amidships, and a forward head behind a glass wall, while the starboard hull carries two double cabins with en-suite heads. The charter configuration instead packs a single crew cabin in the starboard bow, an amidships single to port between two doubles, and en-suite heads throughout. Either way the saloon opens to a single-level aft deck with a forward-facing transom couch, port-side dining for eight, and a built-in fridge and life-raft stowage under the starboard helm seat.

Equipment and Common Upgrades

Commonly fitted gear on used Saonas centers on self-sufficiency: a watermaker, chartplotter, solar, inverter, autopilot, electric winches, air conditioning, and lithium batteries are usual, with a swim platform, freezer, life raft, and cockpit shower rounding out the liveaboard baseline. For power and energy, the standard twin 40 hp Volvo saildrives may be supplemented by a Cummins Onan generator and lithium banks fed by solar—worth verifying under load. Sail-handling clusters around electric winches and autopilot, while a hydraulic swim-platform raise between the hulls stores the RIB. Often-seen dinghy davits, teak decks, and a washing machine signal a comfort-oriented owner boat rather than a bare charter unit; a code zero or starlink remains a less common owner upgrade.

What to Inspect

The interior is primarily hard, sound-reflective surfaces, so listen for wave noise and check whether any owner has added insulation anchor. The saloon’s large windows give good visibility only to tall standing occupants, and the overhead is too high to mount grabrails where the big space could use them anchor—confirm whether previous owners fitted aftermarket grab points. From the helm, the port stern is blocked by the upper deck under power and the entire port hull vanishes under sail, so test any electronic aids and assess dockage plans anchor. Inside piloting is inhibited by lost visibility with sails up, and a test boat showed rigging that made proper mainsail tension hard to achieve, so have a rigger check tune anchor. The mainsail is heavy to raise even through the electric winch at 2:1, a real demand on the electrical system anchor.

Availability and Buyer's Takeaway

These boats turn up in the United States, France, Croatia, Greece, the Virgin Islands, British, and Grenada. For a buyer, the short list is: confirm the Maestro or charter layout matches your plans; test helm sightlines and assume you need a spotter or camera for port-quarter docking; check for added sound insulation and grabrails in the saloon; verify generator, lithium, and watermaker function under realistic load; and have the rig tuned by a professional given the known tensioning difficulty.