Oyster Yachts for Sale

Richard Matthews founded Oyster in 1973, starting with racing boats and the UFO 34, of which more than a hundred were built. The first yacht to carry the Oyster name was the 35 in 1978, and the deck saloon that the Oyster 46 settled on became the thing the brand is known for: a raised saloon with real windows, so the inside of the boat is somewhere you can sit on passage. The current range runs from 56 to 125 feet, the 495 through to the 885, built across six sites in Britain with the Hythe plant near Southampton, opened in 2021, doing most of the modern work. The Oyster 56 of 1998, drawn by Rob Humphreys, is the best selling model at 75 hulls over twelve years.

The company a used buyer deals with today is not the one that built the older boats. In 2015 the Oyster 825 Polina Star III suffered a structural failure and sank, the yard closed at the end of 2017, and Oyster Marine went into administration in February 2018. Richard Hadida, who founded Evolution Gaming, bought the whole business that March, restarted building in May with fifty shipwrights rehired, and has taken turnover from around £30 million to £70 million with more than 600 staff. That is unusually good news for the existing fleet, because the new owner has deliberately built the business around older boats as well as new ones, and the World Rally is full of them. Oysters are semi custom, so two boats of the same model can be very different and the specification matters more than the year. They suit an owner who genuinely intends to cross oceans in comfort, with or without crew, and on any older hull the survey should be a full structural one, with the keel attachment and the complete refit history established before you get to the cosmetics.