Westerly Pageant 23 Sailboats for Sale

Layouts on the Used Market

The Pageant 23 below decks gives more than 6 feet of standing headroom anchor, which sets her apart from many 23-foot contemporaries and makes the enclosed head a real compartment rather than a wedge of space. With a 19-foot waterline and 8-foot beam, the cabin is arranged for two or three people on short hops, and the 15-gallon water and 10-gallon diesel capacities argue for estuary and channel use. Most boats you meet will be the standard aft-cockpit sloop layout; the twin cast-iron keels let an owner dry her out upright, so a number of survivors show wear patterns from groundings on mud and sand rather than from ocean passages.

Equipment and Common Upgrades

A spinnaker is commonly fitted on these boats, reflecting the modest 236-square-foot working sail plan and the desire for downwind fun in light airs. A chartplotter is often seen at the helm or nav station as a modern aid over the original instrumentation. Less frequently, you will find heating or solar as owner upgrades — the former a comfort nod for shoulder-season English sailing, the latter a quiet concession to keeping the Volvo Penta MD1B 10-horse diesel lightly used. None of these alter the core hull, but a factory spinnaker rig suggests the boat was sailed rather than stored.

What to Inspect

Each cast-iron keel is attached with sturdy 1-inch-diameter stainless-steel bolts anchor, so any survey must check those fasteners and the surrounding hull laminate for crevice corrosion or crazing where the iron meets the glass. Laurent Giles originally wanted asymmetrical keel airfoil profiles, but Westerly did not implement them for cost reasons anchor, meaning the keels you see are the simpler production castings — inspect their leading edges and paint for impact damage from the drying-out lifestyle these boats lead. The solid fiberglass hull was built under Lloyd's Registry inspection, so look for the usual early-GRP concerns of osmotic blistering rather than core rot.

Availability and Buyer's Takeaway

The typical markets for the Pageant 23 are the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, where the bilge-keel format suits tidal grids and inland waterways. For a buyer, the short list is:

• Confirm the 1-inch keel bolts are sound and the cast iron shows no active corrosion at the hull joint
• Verify standing headroom and the enclosed head are intact and unmodified
• Check for a spinnaker and a chartplotter as signs of a sailed and updated boat
• Expect heating or solar only on some boats, not as standard
• Treat the twin-keel arrangement as a shallow-water tool, not a bluewater feature