Morgan Yachts For Sale

Morgan Yachts was founded in St. Petersburg, Florida in 1965 by Charley Morgan, a sailmaker and racing skipper who drew and campaigned his own boats — he built Paper Tiger, won the SORC with her, and went on to design an America’s Cup contender. The yard’s early boats carried that racing pedigree. What made the name, though, was what came next.

The Out Island 41, launched at the start of the 1970s, was aimed squarely at the charter trade: shoal draft, a centre cockpit, two private cabins and enough beam to make them comfortable. Hundreds went into Caribbean fleets, and for a generation of sailors an Out Island was the first boat they ever took out for a week. Purists complained that the shallow keel and heavy displacement made her slow to windward. Owners answered that she would sit in six feet of water off any beach in the Bahamas.

Morgan passed through several hands after Charley Morgan sold out — Beatrice Foods, and later Catalina Yachts, which carried the larger centre-cockpit designs into the 1990s. The 43, 45 and 462 are the ones most often met today: heavily built, roomy below, and priced well under what their length suggests.