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Saturna Sailboats

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

Model ↕Listings ↓Year Built ↕LOA (ft) ↕Beam (ft) ↕Draft (ft) ↕Disp. (lbs) ↕Hull ↕Designer ↕Rig ↕Keel ↕
Saturna 339 for sale198133 ft10.67 ft5.5 ft13,500 lbsMonohullWilliam GardenMasthead SloopFin
Saturna 47—201045.28 ft14.04 ft7.87 ft24,251 lbsMonohullDixon Yacht DesignCutterFin

Saturna sailboats: one name, two unconnected boatbuilding stories

A "Saturna" listing does not point to one company. It names two builders that share nothing but a similar name: Saturna Yachts, a British Columbia yard that built the William Garden-designed Saturna 33 through the 1980s, and Saturn Yachts Ltd, a UK company whose Bill Dixon-designed cruisers, built by Ta Yang in Taiwan, sometimes turn up on listings as the "Saturna 47" even though the boat's real name carries no trailing "a." The model number, more than the badge, is what tells a buyer which of the two they're actually looking at.

Origins and ownership

The Saturna 33 began life as the Truant 33, first built in 1977 on Saltspring Island, British Columbia, by Truant Marine, which produced 30 or so of the boat before selling the molds to Saturna Yachts in 1981. Saturna then built what Cruising World describes as an almost-identical Saturna 33 throughout the 1980s, with production later based in the Vancouver Island area, before eventually selling the molds again, this time to Wiggers Yachts in Ontario. A small number of the design were also built in California, by North Coast Yachts, between 1979 and 1982.

Saturn Yachts' story starts with Roger Burroughs, who moved into the boat-building business in the late 1990s, taking over the job of bringing the Hylas range to the UK — work that had him collaborating closely with builders in Taiwan and with the German Frers and Sparkman & Stephens design houses. That experience led him to form Saturn Yachts through an association with naval architect Bill Dixon and to ally the new company with the Ta Yang Yacht Building Company in Taiwan, founded in 1973 and credited by Saturn's UK sales agency with having built more than 1,400 blue-water cruising yachts. Grabau International signed on as Saturn Yachts' exclusive UK and European sales agency in August 2015 — a separate ownership thread, an ocean away, from anything connected to the Saturna 33.

The designers

William Garden designed the Truant 33 that became the Saturna 33 — his only documented tie to the marque. Bill Dixon arrived at Saturn Yachts with a different pedigree: according to Saturn's UK sales agency, he had already taken over revitalizing the Moody range and created the Taswell series before his association with Burroughs produced Saturn's own lineup of custom bluewater cruisers, built in a 44-to-55-foot range.

Construction through the eras

The Saturna 33 is a fiberglass monohull, offered in a pilothouse version and an offshore version built without one; owners describe its build as solid. On the Saturn Yachts side, Ta Yang builds to ISO 9001 certification, and boats built for European markets are constructed to meet the requirements of the EU's Recreational Craft Directive 94/25/EC.

Lines and generations

The Saturna 33 stayed a single design across its changes of ownership, split only into the two cabin configurations noted above. Saturn Yachts grew into a small range of its own: the Saturn 48, a Cruising World 2014 Boat of the Year nominee, was joined by the Saturn 44 and Saturn 55, the family of 44-to-55-foot custom cruisers that includes the boat sometimes listed as the "Saturna 47."

Who Saturna is for

The two lineages suit different buyers entirely. The Saturna 33 fits someone after a vintage Pacific Northwest pilothouse cruiser with a reputation, among its owners, for solid build. The Saturn range — Dixon-designed, Ta Yang-built custom cruisers in the 44-to-55-foot range — fits a buyer after a larger, more recently built offshore boat, and shares nothing with the 33 beyond the coincidence of a similar name.

Frequently asked questions

01What does "Saturna" mean on a used-boat listing?+
It names two entirely separate builders that happen to share a similar name: Saturna Yachts, a British Columbia company that built the Saturna 33, and Saturn Yachts Ltd, a UK company whose custom bluewater cruisers sometimes get listed with an extra "a" the boat's real name doesn't carry. The two share no corporate or design connection.
02Who built the Saturna 33?+
The Saturna 33 began as the Truant 33, designed by William Garden and first built in 1977 by Truant Marine on Saltspring Island, British Columbia. Truant Marine sold the molds to Saturna Yachts in 1981, which built the design — Cruising World calls it almost identical to the original — throughout the 1980s before eventually selling the molds on to Wiggers Yachts in Ontario.
03Who designed the Saturna 33 and the Saturn range?+
William Garden designed the Truant 33 that became the Saturna 33. The Saturn range came from a different designer entirely: Bill Dixon, already known for revitalizing the Moody range and creating the Taswell series, partnered with Roger Burroughs to design Saturn Yachts' custom bluewater cruisers.
04What is the boat sometimes listed as the "Saturna 47"?+
It's a Saturn Yachts Ltd boat, part of a UK company's range of Bill Dixon-designed cruisers built by the Ta Yang Yacht Building Company in Taiwan. Founder Roger Burroughs formed Saturn Yachts after years spent bringing the Hylas range to the UK, and Grabau International became the company's exclusive UK and European sales agent in August 2015.
05Are the Saturna 33 and the Saturn range connected?+
No. Beyond a similar-sounding name, they share no builder, designer, country, or era — the Saturna 33 is a 1970s-80s British Columbia design by William Garden, while the Saturn range is a Bill Dixon-designed, Taiwan-built cruiser line formed decades later by a different company.