A 2015 Fountaine Pajot Saba 50 in Annapolis at $649K — what I'd actually offer
A 2015 Saba 50 came across my desk this week — the layout is right for our family of six, but the bridge deck question is still the one I can't answer from the broker's email.
A broker in Annapolis sent me a listing this week: 2015 Fountaine Pajot Saba 50, four-cabin/four-head owner-and-guests layout, asking $649K. Texas freshwater for the first four seasons, then Chesapeake and Bahamas cruising the last six. Logs look honest. Surveys from 2022 and 2024 are in the package.
The Saba 50 is the boat I keep flagging for the family-of-six use case. Six berths in a reasonable layout, a real nav station, a walk-around master, and the FP service network in most of the places we'd plausibly need one. It isn't an Outremer — the bridge deck is lower than I want for upwind in the trades, and the rig is undersized for the displacement — but the layout maps to how four kids actually live aboard, and ten-year-old FP build quality is better than the forums give it credit for.
Here's what reads right in this one. Volvo D2-75s, single owner since new, raw-water impellers logged every season. Spectra Cape Horn watermaker installed in 2021. A Rocna 33kg with 80m of 10mm chain — almost certainly undersized for our use, but a known starting point. Mantus snubber. Lithium house bank from 2023, looks like a proper install with a Victron Cerbo and shunt. The standing rigging is original 2015.
Here's what I'd budget for. Saildrive seals at ten years are due. The original sails are tired — a North Sails 3Di mainsail plus a Code 0 quote for this boat runs about $28K. Standing rigging at ten years on a hot-climate boat is borderline; I'd plan to pull it. Dinghy and outboard look original. Electronics are pre-Axiom B&G — fine, but not what I'd commit to before a circumnavigation with four kids.
Rough punch list: rigging $18K, sails $28K, saildrive service $6K, new dinghy and 15hp outboard $12K, chartplotter and AIS upgrade $8K, ground tackle upgrade to a 40kg Mantus and 100m of chain $5K, plus a haul-out and survey-driven list I'm pencilling at $15K. Call it $92K to make the boat ours and ready to leave.
Delivered, I'm at $741K before tax and the cost of moving it to wherever we commission. Comparable Saba 50s have been trading in the $580–620K range — the Multihulls Source data I track has the model average at $597K over the last six months, with the spread tight enough that I trust the number more than I trust a single asking price.
What I'd offer: $545K, contingent on survey and sea trial. Walk-away at $585K. I'd rather lose the boat than overpay for it. There's another Saba 50 in St. Martin and one in Le Marin, both around the same vintage, both priced more reasonably for what they are. The 2015 in Annapolis is in the right condition but the broker is fishing for an asking-price buyer, and I'm not that buyer.
The real reason I'm interested at all is the bridge deck. We chartered a Saba 50 in the BVI two winters ago and the slap from a beam sea at anchor was loud but not jarring. Underway upwind in 25 knots, different story. I want to revisit that — probably by chartering one a week in the Atlantic, not the Caribbean, and seeing how it actually behaves. That's the spend I haven't budgeted yet, and the answer that will probably move me toward the Outremer 51 anyway.
The boat worksheet I'm running these numbers through is here if you want to see the model.
