Beneteau 50 Used Buyer's Guide, From the Farr 50 to the 2010 Model

Which Beneteau 50 are you looking at

Beneteau has used the simple name Beneteau 50 for more than one boat, and listings for a Beneteau 50 for sale mix them freely, so start by identifying the hull. The boat most people mean is the Bruce Farr designed Beneteau 50, built from 1995 to 2004 according to sailboatdata, with about 200 hulls. It was also sold into charter as the Moorings 503, 504 and 505 and as the Stardust 505, the numbers reflecting different cabin layouts.

In 2010 Beneteau USA introduced a new Beneteau 50 with a fixed arch for the mainsheet and styling that SAIL described as a scaled down version of the 58. That boat, designed by Berret-Racoupeau and later sold as the Oceanis 50, is a different design with a shorter 49 ft 6 in hull and a wider transom. If a listing shows a mainsheet arch over the cockpit, it is the later boat.

This guide focuses on the Farr 50, which is the more common boat on the US and Caribbean brokerage market and the one that cruisers still seek out as a long-distance platform. We cover the 2010 boat at the end.

Bruce Farr's numbers for a big production cruiser

Farr Yacht Design has worked with Beneteau since the mid 1980s, mostly on the performance First range, and the Beneteau 50 brings that thinking to a big cruising hull. It measures 50 ft 9 in overall on a long 45 ft 5 in waterline, with a 14 ft 8 in beam, 28,660 lb displacement and 9,315 lb of ballast in a fin keel with a bulb. Standard draft is 7 ft 7 in, with a shoal keel at about 5 ft 11 in.

Those figures produce a displacement to length ratio of about 137 and a sail area to displacement ratio of about 17.6 on the standard masthead rig, which sailboatdata reports at 1,027 sq ft. That is a light, long-waterline hull with moderate sail power, and the theoretical hull speed is just over 9 knots. The ballast ratio of about 33 percent is modest, so the boat relies partly on its beam for stiffness and benefits from reefing early.

Motion comfort sits around 26 and the capsize screening value is about 1.92, inside the conventional 2.0 threshold for offshore boats. Put simply, this is a fast, roomy coastal and trade-wind cruiser rather than a heavy bluewater tank.

264 gallons of water and why liveaboards like it

The Beneteau 50's tankage is one reason it shows up in long-term cruising fleets. Sailboatdata lists 264 gallons (999 liters) of water and 132 gallons (500 liters) of diesel. That water capacity is larger than many newer 50 footers carry, and on a boat that often lives at anchor it can delay or downsize a watermaker.

Original engines were Yanmar or Perkins diesels. Many boats have since been repowered, so check the engine model, hours and installation rather than assuming the brochure power. With 132 gallons of fuel, motoring range is generous for a sailboat, but we found no published fuel curve, so we do not quote a figure.

Moorings 503, 504 and 505, and the charter question

A large share of Beneteau 50s were built for charter companies, most visibly The Moorings, which named its versions by layout. Charter boats were built with more cabins and heads, durable fabrics and simple systems, then sold into private hands after their fleet life.

Ex-charter boats are the cheapest way into a 50 ft cruiser, but you are buying years of hard use by many skippers. Look closely at the rudder bearings, keel attachment and internal structural grid for grounding repairs, the engine's hours and service, the condition of winches and blocks, and soft spots or leaks around deck hardware. A boat that has had a thorough post-charter refit can be a bargain; one that went straight from fleet to broker usually needs a large budget.

Owner versions with fewer cabins and more storage were also built, and those usually command a premium, especially if they have been set up for passagemaking with watermakers, solar, wind vanes or modern autopilots.

Living aboard a Farr 50 today

Owners who cruise these boats typically praise the space, the long waterline under way and the big tankage, and owner videos of 1997 and 1998 boats show them still being used as liveaboard homes and offshore cruisers decades later. The masthead rig with a large genoa is simple to handle with modern furlers and electric winches, and the hull's length helps make good daily runs on trade-wind passages.

The trade-offs are those of a late-1990s production boat: interior joinery and headliners that may be tired, original deck hatches that leak, and electrical systems that have often been modified by several owners. None of that is unusual, but it needs to be priced in.

• Budget for standing rigging replacement if it is over 10 to 12 years old
• Expect at least one generation of electronics upgrades
• Check sail inventory age, especially the large masthead genoa
• Confirm whether the boat has the deep or shoal keel

The 2010 Beneteau 50 with the mainsheet arch

The second boat to carry the name arrived in 2010. SAIL's review listed it at 49 ft 6 in overall, 43 ft 8 in on the waterline, a 14 ft 9 in beam, 5 ft 9 in draft, 28,660 lb displacement and 9,480 lb of ballast, built by Beneteau USA. Its signature was a fixed arch carrying the mainsheet out of the cockpit, an idea Beneteau carried through later Oceanis models.

Sailboatdata catalogs this design as the Oceanis 50, by Berret-Racoupeau, sharing a hull with the earlier Oceanis and Beneteau 49 and also sold to charter as the Moorings 50.5. It is a newer, more expensive boat on the used market. If you want that generation, compare it with the Oceanis 51.1 and Jeanneau's 50 ft cruisers rather than with the Farr 50.

What a 50 ft Beneteau costs to keep

We estimate $22,000 to $50,000 a year to keep a Beneteau 50 in the US, excluding depreciation and major refits. A 50 ft slip is the largest single item in most regions, followed by insurance, an annual haul-out with bottom paint, engine service and a steady reserve for sails, rigging and canvas. Owners cruising full time in the Caribbean or Bahamas often spend less on dockage but more on maintenance in remote places.