Comet 910 Review & Buyer’s Guide: The Italian Classic Both Designers Disowned
What you’d actually do with her
This is a compact coastal boat for low-budget active sailing. Typical use: a half-day run along the shore, a weekend with a night in the next bay over, and in summer a holiday of hops between islands and harbour towns; in the Mediterranean she works as a full season cruiser. She sails better than most boats of her size and era, so she is fit for weeknight club racing without modification. Below deck there is everything a couple or a small family needs for a week or two afloat: berths, a galley, a heads. Two people handle her easily; with experience, one. Because of her age, buying one almost always means spending on the engine, the rigging and the systems. That is part of the genre, and it is priced in. Ocean passages and high latitudes are not her genre: this is a boat of coasts and short seas.
The boat both designers disowned
Two days before the launch, with the boat already entered for a race around Sicily, two telephone calls came in to the yard’s office in Forlì. The callers were the designers: a Dutchman and a Frenchman who, without conferring, rang on the same day with the same request. Take our names off this project. Both were afraid of embarrassing themselves.
The boat went to Naples on a truck, unfinished. A yard craftsman completed the joinery on the delivery leg to Messina. At the tiller stood a 37-year-old named Cino Ricci, a future legend of Italian sailing. On elapsed time, the first boat home was the 17-metre Pen Duick III of Eric Tabarly himself. On corrected time, the race went to a nine-metre orphan from Forlì.
That was the Middle Sea Race of 1971. No smaller boat has won it since, and the photograph still hangs in the secretariat of the Royal Malta Yacht Club. The orphan got a name, Comet 910, sold by the hundreds, and became for Italy what her direct ancestor had become for France: the boat whole sailing lives began on.
Today she is one of the cheapest sensible entries into sailing anywhere: a live market, a simple structure, a character proven over half a century. The price of the ticket is age. Every hull is past forty, and what you buy is never just a boat. It is a boat plus a list of jobs.
The story: a Dutch sketch, a French rework, an Italian character
In the early seventies the Sipla yard of Forlì, later Comar, was selling the French quarter-tonner Écume de Mer in Italy. Cino Ricci, a consultant to the yard, had spotted her at the Paris boat show. She sold so well that the directors, Membeli and Zavatta, ordered the next step: a thirty-footer of their own.
The project began with a sketch by E. G. Van de Stadt, patriarch of the Dutch school. The drawings then landed on the desk of a young Jean-Marie Finot, fresh from his Écume de Mer triumph; he proposed changes, and the changes were accepted. Finot remembered it without jealousy: “On this boat each of us brought his own experience. We designed a boat that none of us could have done alone.” (translated from French)
Then came the double disowning, and the triumph at Malta, after which nobody disowned anything again. Over the years the Italian press has drifted toward crediting “a Finot design”; the primary source, the Finot office itself, keeps both names on the model’s card: Van de Stadt, Finot, 1971.
For Comar the boat became a foundation. On the wave of the 910 the yard grew into the largest production builder in Italy of its era. Ricci went further, on to the America’s Cup with Azzurra. And the 910 stayed in build for twenty years across two generations.
“At nine metres ten she is the smallest winner in the history of the race... the photo of our Comet 910 is still pinned to the wall of the secretariat of the Royal Malta Yacht Club.”
What kind of boat is this — if you’re seeing her for the first time
The Comet 910 is a nine-metre fibreglass sailing yacht built around a crew of two to four. Three things set her apart from her contemporaries.
She is light and quick, by the standards of her generation. A displacement of 3,200 kg under some fifty square metres of sail was a near-racing proportion in the early seventies, and she still gets moving in breezes that leave her peers parked. This is exactly why owners still take her club racing.
The interior is a single moulded liner. The whole accommodation, lockers and bilge included, is formed as one plastic tub bonded into the hull. The upside: stiffness, hygiene, durability. The downside matters to a buyer: the hull is barely reachable from inside, and water between liner and hull lives a life of its own. This is her defining structural trait, and the survey section returns to it.
There are two generations. The base 910 (1971 to 1987): short coachroof, long cockpit, minimum weight. The 910 Plus (1980 to 1991): a lengthened coachroof, a shorter cockpit, noticeably more volume below and roughly half a tonne of extra weight. Hull, sailplan and appendages are shared. For a buyer this split matters more than it looks. These are effectively two different boats in price and in genre: racing classic and small cruiser.
Around five hundred were built across both versions (491 by the Finot office’s count; estimates run as high as a thousand, unpacked at the end). Nearly all of them are in Italy.
Living with her: the owners’ voices
Fifty years on, the owners speak of the 910 with surprising unanimity, and about surprisingly different boats.
“The 910 Plus, in my view, is a great boat. I’ve sailed her the length and breadth of the Mediterranean and NEVER had a problem... for me she remains a boat that gives you shivers.”
“The 9.10 Plus is a wonderful boat, liveable below and on deck, she sails, and she doesn’t slam into the waves.”
Her handling was documented as far back as the factory-era trials: on a following sea the hull tends to surf, staying obedient, with no broaching tendency; into a short head sea the motion is soft; her best point is hard on the wind. The signature heavy-weather move is to reef the headsail first: the bow lifts and the boat picks up her feet again.
There are sober voices too. The accommodation is honest 1970s: lower, tighter and darker than any modern boat of the size. Under power she is frankly slow. The standard deck hardware and the interior finish were always considered weak points, on a hull whose bottom laminate thickness owners still boast about.
“She’s a boat with less accommodation than today’s boats her size, slower under engine, but with enviable seakeeping and versatility under sail.”
The great debate: racer or quiet cottage?
Every boat in this canon has its argument. The Comet 910’s is an unexpected one: the community cannot agree on who she actually is.
On one side, the biography. A win in a six-hundred-mile offshore race, a smallest-ever record still standing, and living owners who campaign the legend on club start lines. On the other, the daily experience of the people who simply spend their summers aboard:
The honest takeaway for a buyer: both are right, because they are describing different boats and different eras. In 1971 the 910 was fast against the heavy cruisers of her day. Against a modern fleet she is unhurried classic sailing that has kept excellent manners and the gift of moving in light air. Do not buy her as a First-killer; the anecdotes are about handicap, tune and the hands on the tiller. Buy her as a quick-footed, obedient, seakindly weekend boat, which is precisely what she promises and delivers. And the choice of version settles half the argument: the base 910 leans toward the racing legend, the Plus toward the summer cottage.
Buying a used Comet 910: problems and what to check
From here on, this dossier switches to survey mode. Print this section and take it to the boat.
The community’s owner checklist crystallised back in the 2000s, and it is short. Here it is, verbatim:
“Things to look at: the chainplates of the forward lower shrouds; the frame of the bulkhead under the mast, often slightly bowed; play in the rudder. And the engine, obviously.”
Unpacking it node by node.
The bulkhead and the mast step
The mast is deck-stepped on the coachroof; the load passes into a bulkhead cut through with door openings. Some bowing under the step is a family trait; the question is degree. Look for gelcoat cracks under the mast support, inside and out: with wrongly tuned rigging they grow. A pronounced bow plus fresh cracking is a bargaining point and a job.
The liner: the number-one signature theme
The hull interior is fully enclosed, bilge and lockers included. Three consequences. First, drainage: water trapped between liner and hull can stand for years, so hunt for its traces around the keel sump and under the sole boards, and ask how the limber paths are arranged. Second, liner-to-deck-sandwich debonding is a known theme; feel for soft deck underfoot at the mast and on the foredeck. Third, any hull repair from inside is expensive, because reaching the hull means cutting through the liner first.
Keel joint and bolts
A documented French restoration case: the sealant blown along the entire keel joint, an oxidised keel sole, a deeply corroded bolt hiding under filler, and bulkheads soaked loose after years of standing water in the bilge (Hisse-et-Oh, 2015). That is the worst case, but it shows where to look: the keel-to-hull seam outside, the bolts in their recesses, the signs of long-standing water below.
Rudder and stock
Play in the stock bushings is standard age-related wear, and owners replace bushings themselves. Check for play by hand at the dock; worn bushings knock in a seaway.
Osmosis
She comes from the era when osmosis was a fact of life. A moisture-meter survey is mandatory. Blisters below the waterline mean negotiation; a hull already peeled, dried and epoxy-barriered is a premium, not a defect.
Period details
The original galley sinks are ABS plastic, by now usually clouded or cracked; replaced is good. The standard deck hardware is weak, so look for upgraded winches and clutches. The electrics of a fifty-year-old boat are nearly always archaeology: rewired looms are worth more than any chromed pushpit.
The engine as the hull’s biography
The original diesel outlived its service life long ago; most boats run on replacements (Nanni, Lombardini, Beta). A fresh repower is half the value of the boat. A tired original is a third off the price and the first line of your budget.
Verify the version with your eyes, not the paperwork
The 910 and the Plus are told apart by coachroof and cockpit length; listings confuse them constantly, and the price gap between the versions runs up to double.
Comet 910 price and market: the cheapest entry in the canon
The Comet 910 is the first boat in this canon whose market runs on volume rather than price. The market is alive and almost entirely Italian: dozens of boats at any moment, from half-dead projects to refitted hulls with new engines.
Market snapshot (August 2026): close to twenty listings on subito.it across the whole of Italy, Trieste to Bari, lakes included, plus brokerage boats on trovobarche, YachtVillage and with regional dealers. Asking prices: the base 910 roughly €5,000 to €19,000 (the bottom end being take-it-and-fix-it projects), the 910 Plus €18,000 to €32,000. Sixteen to nineteen thousand currently buys a cared-for base 910 with updates; twenty to twenty-six, a decent Plus. Above thirty there are only fully refitted boats with fresh engines, and the market holds few of those.
The forum wisdom of the 2000s has not aged in its essentials: half the value of the boat is the work already done. Engine, rigging, sails, electrics are what you are buying. The hull comes attached.
The practical conclusion: nobody waits years for a Comet 910. You choose from ten. The buyer’s edge here is not speed but filtering, the ability to tell a hull with a maintenance history from a hull with a listings history.
Market snapshot: August 2026. This section is updated with each revision.
Comet 910 vs Dufour, Feeling and Elan: what buyers actually compare
Comet 850 is the little sister, same Finot, same yard: half a metre shorter, noticeably cheaper, same character. Choosing her is pure economics, and everything said above about surveying a 910 applies to her too.
Dufour 2800 / 3800 are the French alternative from the same era. The 2800 is smaller and simpler, with a huge production run and a wider market. The 3800, a Frers design, is the direct rival to the Plus: heavier, more solid, and built without a full liner. The Italian press praises her hull precisely for being repairable from inside, where the 910 has her tub. Price brackets are comparable.
Kirié Feeling 920 is the French take on the small cruiser: heavier, roomier, with a lifting-keel variant for thin water. Italian forums produce the occasional blunt “a Feeling is a thousand times better than any 910.” A matter of taste, but a telling one: people buy the Feeling for volume and comfort, the 910 for pace and price.
Ziggurat 916 (Vallicelli) is the Italian half-tonner, the raciest of the company, for those who find the 910 not sporting enough. A thinner market, lower prices, more compromise below.
Elan 31 is the same idea ten years younger: the J&J school, lighter on the helm, fresher in build, dearer to buy. The rational pick for anyone scared off by fifty years of age.
The formula the community has settled on: minimum budget and the Italian market, Comet 910 or 850; volume and comfort, Feeling or Dufour 3800; sport, Ziggurat; fear of half a century, Elan 31, and that is already a different price league.
Dufour 3800
Kirié Feeling 920
Elan 31
Open questions
The production count stays open: 491 (the Finot office) against “around six hundred” (Bolina, the Museo dal Mare) and “almost a thousand” (Comar’s corporate telling). No factory register has surfaced; 491 is adopted here as the only figure traceable to a primary source. The owner-reported hypothesis of three mast heights (10.75 / 11.25 / 11.75 m) is unconfirmed by any primary source; what is documented is a two-variant rig and two draft options, and only a factory rig list will close it. No detailed first-hand heavy-weather passage report on a 910 has surfaced in open sources, a paradox for a boat with an offshore win in her biography. And the name and fate of the racing prototype, “Comet One,” after 1971 is a question for the Royal Malta YC archive. Owner interviews are underway; their testimony will join the next revision.
Comet 910 specifications (base series, 1971–1987)
| Length overall | 9.15 m |
| Waterline length | 7.10 m |
| Beam | 3.05 m |
| Draft | 1.70 m (shoal option ~1.40 m) |
| Displacement | 3,200 kg |
| Ballast | 1,250 kg |
| Sail area (main / genoa) | 16.6 / 34.2 m² |
| Rig | masthead sloop |
| Engine | diesel 12–20 hp |
| Water / fuel | 150 / 48 L |
| Construction | GRP, full interior liner |
| Built (both versions) | 491 (Finot); estimates to ~1,000 |
FAQ
How much does a used Comet 910 cost?
A base 910 runs roughly €5,000 to €19,000 depending on condition (a cared-for example, €16,000 to €19,000); a 910 Plus, €18,000 to €32,000. The market is almost entirely Italian and the supply is consistently wide.
What are the known problems of the Comet 910?
Age-related themes: osmosis, play in the rudder stock bushings, bowing of the bulkhead under the mast step, the condition of the keel joint and bolts, weak original deck hardware, and clouded ABS sinks. The signature structural theme is the full interior liner: poor access to the hull from inside and trapped water between liner and hull.
What’s the difference between the Comet 910 and the 910 Plus?
The Plus (1980–1991) gained a lengthened coachroof, a shorter cockpit, noticeably more interior volume and about half a tonne of weight (3,700 vs 3,200 kg). Hull, sailplan and appendages are shared. The base 910 is closer in spirit to the racing classic, the Plus is a small cruiser.
Did the Comet 910 really win the Middle Sea Race?
Yes. In 1971 the prototype, steered by Cino Ricci, won the race on corrected time, beating Tabarly’s Pen Duick III on handicap. She remains the smallest boat ever to win the Middle Sea Race overall.
Comet 910 or Dufour 3800?
The 910 is lighter, quicker in light air, cheaper, with a wider (Italian) market. The Dufour 3800 is more solid and roomier, built without a full liner, so hull repairs from inside are simpler. Both are honest classics of the seventies and eighties; the choice comes down to pace against volume.
Method: this dossier was assembled from the Finot office’s materials (the primary source on authorship and production count), the archives of the Italian sailing press (Giornale della Vela, Bolina, SoloVela, VelaBlog), the Museo dal Mare’s record, owner threads on Amici della Vela, Hisse-et-Oh and it.hobby.nautica, and brokerage archives and live listings 2020–2026. Quotes are translated from Italian and French with meaning preserved. Where sources disagree, we either resolved the conflict with data (displacement, resolved by version) or left it honestly open (production count, rig variants). Owner interviews are underway; their testimony will join the next revision.