Beneteau Figaro 3 Boats For Sale

The Beneteau Figaro 3 is a VPLP-designed offshore one-design and the first production sailboat fitted with foils, the curved "moustache" boards that extend about 1.5 meters from each side of the hull through a bearing in the topsides. Those foils do the work that 300 liters of water ballast did on the Figaro 2: they generate righting moment, resist leeway like a daggerboard, and add lift to reduce wetted surface. The stronger the wind and the faster the boat moves, the more righting moment the leeward foil delivers, so a Figaro 3 can be pressed hard with just one or two people aboard and still feel like a full crew is hiking on the rail. The design was named European Yacht of the Year and won Boat of the Year at the Annapolis Sailboat Show, taking awards before the first production hulls left the factory.

This is a race boat built for solo and short-handed sailing, and it suits offshore racers who want a high-performance pocket racer that can also be crewed with as many as four or five. It was selected as a training platform for the 2024 Olympics on the logic that it is among the most technically demanding and highest-performing boats of its size. A retractable bowsprit carries asymmetric downwind sails and brings the overall length to roughly 36 feet.

Performance comes from a tall, two-spreader fractional carbon rig with a square-top mainsail, a step up in power from the Figaro 2 that means crews reef earlier than they ever did on the older boat. The hull is light, with hard chines and a wide stern, and twin rudders set far apart on the transom give a light, communicative tiller. The boat planes readily and tracks well, and the rudders are toed in or out with reference marks for different conditions. The foils stay fully extended while racing — never partway — and are only retracted close to the hull for docking; each foil weighs roughly 20 to 35 kilos and is awkward enough that two people maneuver it into the boat.

Control of the Beneteau Figaro 3 is concentrated at the helm. All halyards, the kicker, jib leads on transverse tracks with low-friction rings, the foil retraction lines and the foil rake line run back to the cockpit, and most controls are duplicated on both sides so the skipper can trim without leaving the steering position. There is a fold-down foot brace, primary winches within reach, a full-beam traveler led to each side, and a fine-tune mainsheet. An NKE autopilot driving the tiller is treated as core safety equipment for solo racing, with compass, rudder and wind modes and extensive adjustment of response rate and rudder movement.

The Beneteau Figaro 3 interior is deliberately spartan — a structural race shell with thick bulkheads and visible ring frames running the length of the boat. Pipe cots serve mostly for sail and gear storage rather than sleeping, and crew bed down on stacked sails or on the cabin sole depending on trim. The nav station carries an NKE multigraphic display, navigation software with AIS, a VHF, an EPIRB and a loud sleep alarm; the galley is a JetBoil for rehydrating meals, and the head is minimal. Forward is sail stowage and a sealed anchor. Buyers looking at a Figaro Beneteau 3 for sale should check the foil hatch arrangement and the added buoyancy: early boats had water ingress at the foil bearings, and the hatches were revised to a second-generation design.