Montgomery 17 Sailboats for Sale

Layouts on the Used Market

The dominant used layout is the trunk-cabin, keel-centerboard model with a V-berth forward split by the mast post and quarter berths to port and starboard. Early boats carried a tiny port galley and narrow starboard berth; a 1978 interior swapped the galley for a full-length port settee, and the 1987 version shortened that berth to five feet for a bigger cockpit locker. A few flush-deck tall-rig boats and early fixed-keel or swing-keel variants exist but are scarce, so most buyers will evaluate the standard trunk-cabin plan with its 4-foot-3½-inch cabin headroom and 32-inch companionway. The self-bailing cockpit with drained seat lockers and a 1981 wet locker is a consistent used-market feature worth confirming intact.

Equipment and Common Upgrades

Propulsion on these boats is almost entirely outboard-driven. Most owners fit a long-shaft 4- or 5-horsepower four-stroke outboard, and later hulls carry a retractable mount for it. Beyond that, no published source names commonly fitted or often-seen factory options in the used fleet, so a buyer should treat any electronics, canvas, or sail-handling gear as owner-installed rather than standard. A symmetrical spinnaker may be equipped on the design for downwind sailing but appears as an owner choice, not a production fitting. The practical takeaway is to judge the engine bracket, mast-step integrity, and sail condition rather than expect packaged upgrades.

What to Inspect

Documented known issues center on the keel and core. A few owners reported portlight leaks, balsa core saturation, and gelcoat fading typical of vintage fiberglass. More serious on older boats is rusting of the cast-iron centerboard and binding inside the keel; the gravest fault is that the enclosed ferrous ballast rusts and expands, causing the keel to swell and jam the board, requiring extensive fiberglass surgery to correct with lead. On any pre-1987 example, confirm whether the centerboard has been removed, sandblasted, faired, and epoxied, and whether ballast was converted. Check the two cockpit seat hatches drain and secure, and that the 1981 wet-locker drainage path is unobstructed.

Availability and Buyer's Takeaway

These boats are found in the United States. For a shopper, the checklist is simple: verify the hull is the trunk-cabin keel-centerboard majority model; confirm 1987-or-later lead ballast and fiberglass board or a documented epoxy refit of earlier iron; inspect balsa core and portlights for saturation; test centerboard retraction freely; and assess the outboard mount and sailplan. A clean M17 with the later ballast spec is the one to pursue.