Pacific Seacraft Yachts for Sale

Pacific Seacraft was started in 1975 by Mike Howarth and Henry Mohrschladt, who built the first boat, a 25 footer, in a garage and showed it at the Newport Boat Show that year. Mohrschladt drew the early Mariah 31 and Orion 27, then brought in William Crealock, whose Crealock 34, Dana 24 and Crealock 31 defined the brand: moderate beam, a canoe stern, heavy layup and an interior built for long passages rather than for a boat show. The yard also picked up the molds for Bruce Bingham's Flicka 20 and several Ericsons. The founders sold to Singapore's Singmarine in 1988, a Southern California owner took over in 1998, and the Fullerton company went into Chapter 11 and was auctioned in 2007.

Steve Brodie bought the assets at that 2007 auction and moved everything to a 60,000 square foot former textile plant at Washington, North Carolina, where production restarted in 2008 and continues, with new boats from 31 to 61 feet and a pair of Razor Cats catamarans alongside the classics. For a used buyer this matters more than it sounds: the original tooling, drawings and the people who know these hulls are all in one building, and the yard takes in about a dozen refits a year on boats it built decades ago. Pacific Seacrafts hold their money accordingly and rarely come cheap. They suit an owner who genuinely intends to go offshore shorthanded and is willing to pay for a small, slow, very strongly built boat instead of a fast roomy one. On an older hull, ask about the deck core, the chainplates and whether the boat has been back to the factory.