Dufour 48 Catamaran Specs, History and Used Buying Guide

Which Dufour 48 are you looking at?

Type dufour 48 into a search bar and you get two very different boats. This page covers the catamaran: a 48-foot flybridge cruiser that Dufour launched under a separate Dufour Catamarans banner for the 2019 model year. The other is the Dufour 48 monohull, a 50-foot sloop introduced in 2024 that now sits in Dufour's main sailboat range. They share a designer and a number, nothing else.

The catamaran's story is unusual. It was conceived when Dufour was still independent, built in a dedicated Italian yard, and survived both Fountaine Pajot's purchase of Dufour in 2018 and the sale of that yard in 2020. Today it is still in production as the Dufour 48 Sail, built by Cervetti Catamarans, which says more than 70 have been completed, most of them for charter fleets.

From a Dufour project to an Italian survivor

JJL Catamarans was established in 2017 in Forli, in the Emilia Romagna boatbuilding region, as part of the Dufour group, and started series production of the Felci-designed 48. Dufour's own spec page gives 2018 as the design year, and SAIL's New Boats and Gear issue for 2019 introduced it as a bold move for a veteran monohull builder.

Fountaine Pajot, one of the world's largest catamaran builders, bought Dufour in 2018. A second catamaran brand inside the group made little sense, and in 2020 the Forli shipyard was sold to new owners. They kept building the same model under the Dufour Catamarans name, made changes to the boat and the production process during their first year, and later launched their own Cervetti 44 Sail and 44 Power. The yard added a second 8,000 square meter production hall in 2023.

A raised helm and a mast moved aft

Felci gave the 48 strong styling: wave-piercing bows, an aggressive reverse sheer, a low and angular cabin trunk and hull inserts that echo Dufour's monohulls. The mast is set well aft, which shrinks the mainsail and makes it easier to handle, and the standard headsail is a self-tacking jib. Sail area is 124 square meters upwind, 76 in the main and 48 in the jib, with a 90 square meter Code 0 and a 110 square meter gennaker as off-wind options.

The flybridge is the centerpiece. The builder treats it as a second cockpit, with two access routes, one from the cockpit to starboard and one from the side deck to port, a low table, large seats and a sunbathing area under a bimini that covers the whole flybridge. The helm console, which the builder describes as superyacht-inspired, groups the three mainsail winches, the jib and gennaker controls with an adjustable helm seat. Visibility is excellent, and the price is the usual one for flybridge cats: the helmsman is a long way from crew working lines forward and from the dock lines when berthing.

Inside, built for charter but liveable for owners

With 8 meters of beam, about 26 feet, the deck plan, cockpit and roof are split roughly into thirds of the boat's length. The cockpit has a table for eight, several lounging areas and a gas plancha, and a large sliding door opens it completely to the saloon. Inside, the galley is connected to the cockpit, the dinette converts to a low table, dining table or double berth, and a forward chart table carries a repeater screen and an autopilot joystick so the boat can be steered from inside.

Layouts run from three to five cabins. The owner's version gives the whole port hull to a suite with a 200 by 170 centimeter bed, desk, wardrobe, sofa and a large head with separate shower. Charter versions put four or five double cabins in the hulls, each with its own head, and every version keeps a skipper cabin. Dufour's original sheet listed six berths with three cabins and four heads, eight berths with four cabins and five heads, or ten berths with five cabins and five heads.

• Owner layout: 3 cabins, 4 heads, skipper cabin
• Mixed layout: 4 cabins, 5 heads, skipper cabin
• Charter layout: 5 cabins, 5 heads, skipper cabin and Pullman

Tanks, engines and changing spec sheets

The 48 carries 900 liters, about 238 gallons, of fuel in two tanks. Water capacity is listed as 700 liters on Dufour's original sheet and as three 270 liter tanks, 810 liters, by the current builder. Engines were twin 50 hp diesels as standard with 60 hp optional in the Dufour era; Cervetti's current sheet lists twin 59 hp Nanni N4.65 units based on Kubota blocks. Light displacement was quoted at 14,955 kg by Dufour, while Cervetti quotes 16.5 tonnes, which likely reflects a more complete loaded figure.

Those differences are a reminder to work from the actual boat, not the brochure. On any used 48, record the engine make and hours, the tank count and the equipment list, then price it accordingly. Twin keels and a 4 ft 3 in draft make it a good fit for the Bahamas and shallow Caribbean anchorages.

Buying an ex-charter Dufour 48

The builder says most of its 48s work in charter fleets worldwide, so that is where most used boats come from. A five-year-old charter cat usually has strong structure and tired everything else: sails, upholstery, galley appliances, pumps and saildrive or shaft seals. Budget for a refit of $30,000 to $60,000 to bring a fleet boat up to owner standard, and compare that against the price gap to a privately owned example.

Annual running costs for a cat this size, including a wide slip or mooring, insurance, two engines, generator and haul-out, typically land between $35,000 and $70,000 in the US. Check parts and service support carefully: the current builder is in Italy, so confirm which dealer or yard near you can handle warranty claims and hull-specific parts.

The 2024 Dufour 48 monohull, briefly

If your search was for the monohull, the Dufour 48 that arrived in 2024 is a different machine entirely: 50 ft 2 in overall with its sprit, 15 ft 11 in beam, a fin keel drawing 7 ft 8 in (2.35 m) or a shoal keel of about 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m), a 60 hp diesel or a Smart Electric option, and interior design by Ardizio. It sits between the Dufour 44 and the Dufour 54 in the current range and is sold through Dufour's normal dealer network.

On the brokerage market you can tell them apart instantly: the catamaran has two hulls, a flybridge and a 26-foot beam, and its listings often appear as Dufour Catamarans 48, Dufour 48 Sail or Dufour Cata 48.