WHAT WE SAY

Broker's comments

Oyster Brokerage are delighted to announce the listing of Oyster 53 Moy Toad.

The Oyster 53 was the second design for us completed by Rob Humphreys, coming just after the 56. Like the 56, the 53 proved successful from launch and remains Oyster’s third most popular model of all time. Our smallest design that offered four cabins as standard, the 53 lost little when compared with her larger sisters, and full use of her 4.66m beam allows a spacious saloon and superb owner’s stateroom with en suite head/shower.

The tried and tested Oyster formula of centre cockpit with single wheel, single skin GRP construction to her hull and topsides, full-length rudder skeg, and keel stepped mast results in a robust ocean voyager with a superb blue water track record. A moderate balanced hull, medium displacement, and lead bulb keel, available in deep or shoal draft versions, gives the 53 a gentle motion at sea, while her generous rig means that her performance under sail is better than expected. Most 53s were rigged as configured as cutters by their original owners, but there are also some sloop-rigged and the great majority were fitted with in-mast furling to allow easy handling by a couple. No less than fifty-two Oyster 53s were launched between 1999 and 2008, and she should be on the short for anyone looking for a moderately sized, simple, and strong blue water cruiser or liveaboard.

Moy Toad is a 2002 example and configured for shorthanded sailing; cutter rigged with push-button electric furling to her mainsail and manual furlers to both headsails. Below decks she has traditional teak joinery and sleeps up to seven in four cabins, her fourth cabin being configured with a single bunk with a workbench. She is very well equipped with 200kg davits, washer/dryer, fridge, freezer, microwave, push-button electric heads, 8kW generator, air conditioning to the saloon and aft cabin, heating and watermaker. The current owner commissioned a refit when he bought her in 2016, and since then he has added new chart plotter and radar displays, and, notably, a new Yamar engine in 2019.

Moy Toad is looking for her next owner to take her sailing!

IN DETAIL