Seawind 850 Sailboats for Sale & Market Overview

The Seawind 850 serves as the pivotal evolutionary link between the company's "off-the-beach" origins and its modern identity as a premier builder of blue-water cruising catamarans. Introduced in the late 1980s by founder Richard Ward, this 28-foot (8.5-meter) vessel was designed to provide a more substantial and seaworthy platform than the trailable Seawind 24, while retaining the performance DNA that defined the brand’s early success. The 850 was the first model where the company experimented with more integrated bridgedeck structures, moving away from the purely open-cockpit trampoline layouts of its predecessors. Although production numbers were more limited compared to the legendary Seawind 1000 that followed, the 850 established the "compact cruiser" niche for the yard, proving that a sub-30-foot multihull could offer genuine coastal cruising capabilities. Detailed historical context for this era of production can be found through the manufacturer’s heritage overview at Seawind Catamarans.