Selene Yachts, Howard Chen's Long-Range Trawlers From Southern China

An architect names his yachts after a moon memorial

Howard Chen studied architecture at Tunghai University in Taiwan under Da-Hong Wang, the architect who in 1970 designed a memorial to the Apollo 11 landing and named it Selene, after the Greek goddess of the moon. When Chen launched his own line of yachts in 1998, he borrowed the name. The architectural training shows in how Selenes use volume and in the quality of their joinery.

The company began with a shipyard in Dongguan, in the Hou-Jie district known for high-end furniture making, which gave it easy access to fine woods, veneers, stone and skilled labor. The first Selene reached the United States in 1999. A second yard opened in Zhuhai, near Macau, in 2008, and all production was consolidated there in 2018. Selene says more than 400 of its yachts are now cruising worldwide.

Classic Explorers, Voyagers and the Selene 49

Selene's current lineup is broad. The Classic Explorer series runs from the 45 to the 72, the Voyager line covers 38 to 50-foot aft-cabin and sedan boats, the Ocean Explorer series stretches from 60 to 98 feet, and the Selene 128 tops the Expedition range. A separate Artemis line spans 39 to 56 feet.

Our covered model, the Selene 49 Classic Explorer, grew out of the earlier Selene 47 and is pitched by the builder as the top of its smaller trawler range. It is a single-engine, long-legged boat in the company's traditional mold, and the model page details how its hull, stern and machinery space changed from the 47. The 49 also carries the brand's most recent headline voyage. In 2026 a 2024-built example named Ruth Pearl II, sailed by the couple who run the YouTube channel The 71 Percent, crossed the Pacific eastbound from Australia to British Columbia, around 10,000 miles, the kind of owner-operator passage Chen's boats were designed for.

Resale, dealers and the Selene survey

Selene Americas represents the yard in North America, selling new hulls and brokering pre-owned Explorers, and the company hosts owner rendezvous on a regular basis. Fewer used Selenes come up than Grand Banks or Nordhavns, so the in-demand sizes, the 49 among them, tend not to linger. A logged ocean crossing helps a boat's value when the upkeep kept up with the miles and hurts it when maintenance slipped. Current new and brokerage price ranges for the 49 are on the model page.

Owners take these boats a long way from home, so concentrate the survey on the machinery that keeps a passagemaker going offshore.

• Hours on the main diesel, its service log and valve adjustment record
• Stabilizer fins, actuators and seals
• Fuel tanks, polishing system and filters
• Cored decks and superstructure around stanchions
• Generator and chilled-water air conditioning under load
• Build location and commissioning records