When the Coats brothers, owners and founders of Antigua Yachts, started their company, they chose to embellish two very good and proven designs: the CSY 44 walk-thru and the Morgan Out-Island 51. They built the Antigua 53, which was virtually the same hull design, but with a more luxurious interior than its Morgan sibling. Likewise, John Coats explained to me that when they decided to start building the CSY 44 walk-thru design from the CSY molds, under the designation of Antigua 44, they started with an interior layout that was very much like the CSY 44, and made it more luxurious and plush. Their Antigua 44 hull #1, now named JOLLY MON, has virtually the same layout as the CSY 44 walk-thru. One of the differences is the interior wood finish: instead of light oak wood finish, like the CSY 44 walk-through, Antigua Yachts went for solid teak interiors with more contemporary square corners, instead of the arches and pillar designs found in the CSY's interior woodwork. They also changed the decks from solid fiberglass construction to balsa core decks, for lighter weight. The hull construction remained the same, according to Coats..

The mast height of most of these Antigua 44's is 60 feet for the cutters and sloops, compared to the taller 65' mast of most CSY 44 walk-thru cutters. Several Antigua 44's were ketch-rigged.

The later Antigua 44's show a higher-degree of customization by the owner. Antigua Yachts heavily advertised that customization was encouraged, for the right price, of course. When we were looking for our boat, we looked at several Antigua 44's. We saw one where there was a tub in the aft stateroom head, with the room for it was taken out of the engine room on the port side, which became much smaller. We saw several boats with teak decks, and one with a washer/dryer combination installed on the starboard side of the shower in the forward head. In one, we saw leather upholstery in all interior cushions, and the aft lazarette above the aft stateroom converted into a huge hatch for added ventilation, and an elaborate permanent stern boarding platform in stainless and teak for easy boarding from a dinghy.

Antigua abandoned the V-drive configuration of many CSY walk-thru's. Although the last batch of CSY walk-thru's built seemed have moved away from the v-drive as well. And Antigua started using Yanmar engines during their later hull numbers.