Dinghies are the bestsellers
The most built sailboat in the world is the Sunfish. The pontoon-type beach dinghy with the mostly brightly coloured lateen sail, which is hardly known in Europe, was designed in 1951 and inducted into the American Sailing Association's Sailboat Hall of Fame in 1995. As the most popular plastic boat ever built. At the time, it was estimated that around a quarter of a million boats had been built. To this day, the Sunfish is produced by the American shipyard Laser Performance, which puts the total number of units built at around 500,000.
The shipyard also has the second bestseller in its programme, the Laser. Around 220,000 of these have been produced, making it the most widely used sailing boat in Europe. In fact, however, it could also be the Opti. Although it officially ranks behind the Laser with around 180,000 boats according to the consecutive hull number, the number of unreported cases is high. While the Laser is only built under a strict licence and numbered consecutively, the Opti count only includes boats that can be measured - but significantly more were built, often as self-built dinghies. These include boats from the former Eastern Bloc.
There are around 15,500 optis registered in Germany that can be measured. Including the boats from the former GDR, which are not surveyable, there would be around 27,000, not counting the many individual private constructions.
It is estimated that around 400,000 Optis have been built worldwide.
Yachts bestsellers are far behind
Manufacturers of cruising yachts can only dream of blur rates in the tens of thousands. The numbers of bestsellers are lower and can be reduced to a simple, unsurprising formula: the bigger and more expensive, the fewer sold. However, it is much more difficult to determine which is the most popular boat in this segment, i.e. with a keel, cabin and overnight accommodation, than it is for dinghies.
There are many reasons for this. Over the decades, the range of cruising yachts on offer has become much more variable than that of dinghies. Shipyards have gone bankrupt, been taken over, the models within a line are subject to ever shorter modernisation cycles, all too often combined with a change of type designation. Paradoxically, it is the large-scale production yards such as Bavaria or Beneteau that find it difficult to make it into the top lists.
Difficult data collection
One example is the Bavaria 30 Cruiser, almost 1,900 of which were built between 2005 and 2007. This is a gigantic number, it means more than 600 boats a year, and it is also the most built Bavaria ever. But it is only good enough for a place at the bottom of the list; the sales period was too short. If all the Bavarias in the same length segment were added together - that's over ten models from the 960 from 1984 to the current Bavaria 34 - the result would definitely be a number in the upper top seller range. However, the hull of the Bavaria 34 has remained unchanged for over ten years, which raises the question of when a yacht can be categorised as an independent model. But even if you wanted to summarise all the boats in this length segment, the shipyard does not have the exact figures for each model.
Not so at Hallberg-Rassy. The Swedish shipyard's most successful model to date is the Monsun 31, launched in 1974 with 904 boats. Together with its successors, the HR 312, HR 31 and HR 310, the "ten-metre rassy" has been built 2,050 times, not including the currently smallest, the HR 340. However, none of the individual models made it into the top 15.
One example of a slightly different model policy is the First 21.7 from Beneteau, the French company's best-selling yacht. Only the name changed, the boat itself hardly changed at all. But that doesn't make data collection any easier. It came onto the market in 1992 as the F 210 and was built 813 times until 1998. It was then slightly modified and sold 1,029 times as the F 211 until 2004. The last First 21.7, which still had the same hull and superstructure, was built 530 times - a total of 2,372 boats. This puts it in the top 15.
Perennial favourites and wonder boats
The bestseller list is clearly topped by the Folkeboot, wooden (around 4,000) and GRP models (around 5,000) combined. But the Folke is not only a bestseller, it has also been built the longest of all the yachts surveyed, from 1942 to the present day.
The Neptun 22 is something of a wonder boat. Over 7,000 of the small cruiser have been built since 1968, first as a so-called Miglitsch original, after its designer, around 2,900 times, then as a forecastle with an enlarged rig. Around ten boats still leave the shipyard every year.
The Neptun 22 experienced its heyday in the seventies, like almost all of the bestsellers identified. At that time, the water sports wave swept across Europe. Suddenly, many more people wanted to sail than before, because they could. GRP was the magic word, glass fibre reinforced plastic. Boats became much more affordable than wooden yachts, which required a lot of raw materials and, above all, hours of work, and the maintenance effort was almost zero in comparison.
Used boats were in short supply
The problem: there weren't enough boats. If you wanted one, you had to buy new; there was virtually no second-hand market. Like a dry sponge, this new group of sailors soaked up the plastic yachts and the shipyards producing them boomed.
The Varianta 65, for example, was a success that is probably impossible today. According to the shipyard, it was the most successful yacht in Europe at the time. All three models - Varianta, Varianta K4 and Varianta 65 - totalled 4,500 sales. Willi Dehler had obviously hit the nerve of the times with this versatile concept. The water wave was unleashed inland. People wanted to sail on inland lakes and go on holiday to the Baltic Sea. Willi Dehler led the way. He and his wife Edith sailed from Großenbrode to Sweden in the Varianta K4, which arrived a year after the original Varianta and had four berths.
Large-scale production was already underway there in the seventies. Names such as Maxi or Albin are still synonymous with Swedish boatbuilding today and are naturally found in the bestseller lists. The Maxi 77, for example, was built exactly 4,000 times.
Margins for small boats shrank
But by the mid-eighties, the sponge was obviously full. Many of the early models were discontinued and larger boats were sold in smaller numbers.
Small yachts are not a model for the future for the industry giants, primarily because of the ever smaller margins and the huge supply on the used boat market, not least because of the boom in the seventies. Fewer but larger boats - that is the situation today.
One exception that proves the rule, however, is the J 70, which was designed in 2012 and the first boats came onto the market in 2013. Designed as a strict regatta unit class, it also offers a slip cabin with berths for up to four people, albeit with rudimentary comfort. She therefore fits the mould chosen here. Thanks in part to the successful marketing concept with championships at club level such as the German Sailing League, the American shipyard has sold 1,740 boats to date, with this figure set to rise to 1,900 by the end of the year.
The top 15 most built cruising yachts
*(In an earlier version of the article, the Albin Express was listed in 15th place with 1400 units, built from 1979 to 1985)
