Wauquiez Centurion 32 Sailboats for Sale & Market Overview

The Wauquiez Centurion 32, designed by the prolific British firm Holman & Pye and built by Henri Wauquiez in France between 1968 and 1977, remains one of the most respected production cruisers of the IOR era. Often described as the "French Swan" due to its exceptional build quality and sleek, purposeful lines, the Centurion 32 was the model that established Wauquiez as a premiere European shipyard. With approximately 380 hulls produced, it offered a blend of offshore capability and refined aesthetics that was rare for a 32-foot yacht in the late 1960s. The hull is a classic deep-V shape with a fin keel and a skeg-hung rudder, a configuration that prioritizes directional stability and seaworthiness over the flat-bottomed, high-volume designs of the modern era. While no direct "siblings" were built on the exact same hull mold, the Centurion 32 paved the way for the larger Centurion 40 and the Centurion 47, and it shares much of its design DNA with other Holman & Pye classics such as the Elizabethan 31 and the Bowman 36.