Ultimate 20 Sailboats for Sale

Layouts on the Used Market

Every U20 shares the same Antrim-derived hull: a forward V-berth 94 inches long tapering to 64 inches wide amidships, plus port and starboard quarterberths at 96 by 18 inches. The cabin can be fully enclosed with hatch boards and the berth structure forms watertight compartments beneath, so the interior layout you see on a used boat is consistent across the production run. What changes more than arrangement is the builder tag—early Ron Moore boats from Santa Cruz, the late-1990s Ultimate Sailboats International volume, and later W.D. Schock Corona-built hulls—but the accommodation itself did not.

Equipment and Common Upgrades

On the used market the U20 commonly carries a spinnaker, asymmetric spinnaker, or code zero flown from the deck-mounted bowsprit, and many also have a furling main. Those kite and furling options are the meaningful buyer-consequence items: they determine whether you are buying a bare racer or a boat already set up for short-handed cruising. The recessed Harken roller furler for the 100-square-foot jib is standard to the design, and the fractional rig with 30-foot mast and swept-back spreaders needs no permanent backstay, so rig complexity stays low regardless of which sails are fitted.

What to Inspect

The construction is a 3/8-inch Baltek balsa core in the hull with Hydrex vinylester exterior skins and a Baltek-cored deck, so a used-boat survey should look hard at any deck or hull core moisture given the age of some hulls. The bulb keel is raised and lowered using a patent-pending winch that can be removed, then secured by hand with six "Scotty" screws; confirm the winch assembly and screw sockets are intact, since the keel draws only nine inches retracted and the locking system is the boat's trailering feature. The transom-hung carbon-fiber rudder rides on pintles and gudgeons—check the blade and fasteners—and the bowsprit housing is held by a six-screw fiberglass cover, with the designer noting the sprit or housing is meant to fail at 1,700 pounds before the hull, so verify it has not been over-reinforced or damaged. Below the berth, the fiberglass pan and longitudinal stringers create the watertight compartments of 1,800 pounds positive buoyancy; ensure those divisions are sound.

Availability and Buyer's Takeaway

Used Ultimate 20s typically appear in the United States, Germany, and Austria. For a buyer, the short checklist is: confirm the builder era but trust the common layout; prioritize hull and deck core condition; exercise the lifting keel winch and hand-lock screws; inspect the rudder hardware and bowsprit housing; and verify the enclosed cabin's buoyancy pan is intact. A well-kept example remains a simple, quick, and secure trailer-sailer with an active class behind it.