Regal Boats, Orlando's Family Builder Moving Up to Yachts

A small company that stayed in the family

Paul and Carol Kuck started Regal in 1969 in Orlando, Florida, building small runabouts. More than half a century later the company is still family-owned and operated, now with around 800 employees, and it has outlasted most of the independent builders it competed with in the 1970s and 1980s. In an industry dominated by Brunswick and private equity, that independence is a real differentiator.

Regal's identity is broad. It builds sterndrive and outboard bowriders, wake surf boats, express cruisers and the SAV line of sports activity vessels, and over the last decade it has pushed into yacht sizes with the Grande Coupe, FLY and XO families.

Express cruisers, XO crossovers and the SAV line

Regal's cabin boats now come in three flavors, and we cover seven models across them. The traditional one is the sterndrive express. The Regal 28 Express, built since about the 2013 model year, keeps an 8 ft 6 in beam that can still go on a trailer, yet fits a queen mid cabin and a head with six feet of headroom under its deck. A single Volvo Penta V8 of 300 to 380 hp drives it, which suits lake and river families well, while saltwater owners need to stay on top of sterndrive care.

XO stands for outboard-powered models in Regal's cruiser and yacht ranges, and it reflects the biggest shift in American boating this decade. Outboards free up the space an inboard engine room would take, which Regal fills with cabin volume, and they make service easier for the typical weekend owner. The smallest is the Regal 26 XO of 2018, essentially the 26 Express layout with a single Yamaha V6 on the transom. The Regal 36 XO of 2020 pairs a retractable hardtop and big cockpit with two sleeping areas and twin Yamahas, and has a sterndrive twin in the 36 Grande Coupe. The Regal 38 XO, introduced in 2019 as an outboard version of the 38 Grande Coupe, adds a glass-enclosed upper saloon and two real cabins on triple Yamahas.

The SAV, or sports activity vessel, is Regal's answer to buyers who want one boat for fishing, swimming and cruising. These are dual-purpose outboard boats with fold-down terraces, fishing cockpits and cabins, and the 34 and 43 SAV ride on the deep-V OceanTrac2 hull rather than the stepped FasTrac. The Regal 50 SAV became the flagship at the 2024 Miami show, with triple Mercury V12s or quad Yamahas and a 48-volt lithium house system. The Regal 43 SAV arrived the same model year with a Seakeeper and twin or triple outboards, and the new Regal 34 SAV of 2026 brings the formula down to 35 feet with a 21-degree bottom.

None of these are bluewater cruisers. The express and XO boats are day and weekend yachts for lakes, bays and the Intracoastal, where their mix of entertaining space and easy handling suits families moving up from bowriders. The SAVs are better suited to open water and Bahamas runs in fair weather.

Resale, dealers and used boat checks

Regal sits in the middle of the market on price and holds value well, especially on recent outboard models that are easy to service. Older sterndrive cruisers depreciate faster and need closer inspection of drives and gasoline engines. New prices have climbed steeply, from roughly $212,000 for a 26 XO to more than $2.2 million for a 50 SAV, which pushes many buyers toward lightly used boats.

The dealer network is one of the broadest of any family builder, covering Florida, the Southeast, the Great Lakes, the Midwest lakes and the West.

• On sterndrive boats, check bellows, gimbal bearings and exhaust manifolds.
• On XO models, review outboard hours and the condition of the outboard bracket.
• On SAV models, check the gyro stabilizer, joystick system and lithium house batteries where fitted.
• Inspect hardtop and windshield seals for leaks into the cabin.
• Test the generator and air conditioning on the larger cruisers.