Dufour 360 Grand Large Used Buyer's Guide

A 350 with a new deck and a grill

When SAIL's Tom Dove reviewed the dufour 360 in 2020, he opened with a simple line: when you have a successful product, you tweak it. The 360 Grand Large is exactly that, a reworked Dufour 350 Grand Large on the same 9.99 m (32 ft 9 in) hull. Dufour presented it as part of its Millésime 2018 range, and it was shown to Cruising World's Boat of the Year judges at the Annapolis show in the fall of 2018.

The changes were mostly above the waterline. The 360 was the first Dufour with what the builder called the Grand Large 3.0 coachroof, with a fixed window in the front of the cabin house. It got new steering pedestals and consoles, primary winches moved within reach of the helm, and a swim platform that Dufour said offers twice the volume of the 350's. The interior picked up the 2018 trim package: moabi, oak or teak joinery, oak parquet floors and grey soft-touch hull panels.

It stayed in production until the Dufour 37 was introduced at Annapolis in the fall of 2022. Both SAIL and Cruising World described the 37 as the 360's direct replacement.

Reading the length: 32 ft 9 in or 35 ft 2 in?

Listings for the 360 give lengths from 33 to 36 feet, and they are all describing the same boat. The hull is 9.99 m long. Add the short bowsprit and anchor roller and the overall length becomes 10.73 m (35 ft 2 in). SAIL's 2019 nominee list put it neatly: 33 ft of LOA, or 36 ft if you count the sprit. For marina billing, ask what your yard measures.

Beam is 3.54 m (11 ft 7 in), carried well aft by chines, and light displacement is 5,775 kg (12,732 lb) with a 1,550 kg cast iron keel drawing 1.90 m. Yachting Monthly worked out a sail area to displacement ratio of 19 and a displacement to length of about 218, which describes a moderate, easily handled cruiser rather than a light racer.

• Sail area 60 m2 (34.5 m2 main, 25.5 m2 headsail)
• Fuel 160 L (42 gal), water 220 L (58 gal)
• CE category A for 6 people, B for 8
• Ballast ratio about 27 percent

Why the two-cabin boat is the one to buy

Every reviewer arrived at the same conclusion. In the two-cabin layout you get a roomy V-berth forward behind double doors, with an opening hatch and a forward-facing port, a decent double aft to port, and a large head with shower to starboard that has a stowage space behind it you can also reach from the cockpit. A proper forward-facing nav station sits to starboard, an L-shaped galley to port, and two sea-berth length settees flank a drop-leaf table. Cruising World judge Alvah Simon liked that there was no obvious owner's cabin and cubbyhole for guests.

The three-cabin version squeezes a second aft cabin into the starboard quarter, shrinks the nav station and moves it forward into the starboard settee. Yachting Monthly's tester found that starboard aft cabin short on legroom for adults, while noting the boat can sleep up to nine. For a couple or a small family, the two-cabin boat has more stowage, the better chart table and a big cockpit locker.

Sailing a boat without a backstay

Swept-back twin spreaders and shrouds anchored at the sheer let Dufour leave off the backstay, which frees the space behind the twin wheels. Headsail choices are a self-tacking jib or a 107 percent overlapping genoa with fairleads adjustable from the cockpit, and halyards, vang and reefing lines run aft under the coachroof. A double-ended German mainsheet runs to the primaries just forward of the wheels.

In about 10 knots on Chesapeake Bay, SAIL's test boat with the shoal keel made 5.5 knots to windward, a bit over 6 knots on a close reach and just under 5 downwind without a spinnaker, tacking through less than 90 degrees with smooth, positive feedback through the wheel. Cruising World's sail was in about 4 knots of wind, where the boat managed just over 2 knots close-hauled and about 2.5 on a reach, which tells you more about the day than the boat. Yachting Monthly called it a delightfully easy-to-sail cruiser, and noted that most owners will not miss a mainsheet traveller, though experienced trimmers might.

Nineteen or thirty horsepower

Standard power is a two-cylinder Volvo Penta of about 19 hp, and most reviewers would pay for the three-cylinder option of 29 to 30 hp. SAIL's boat with the bigger engine cruised at 6.3 knots at 2,500 rpm and made 7 knots at 2,800 rpm, turning in under one and a half boat lengths. Cruising World recorded 6 knots at 2,400 rpm and 6.8 knots flat out with the 29 hp engine, and judge Tim Murphy said the boat backed beautifully in both directions. The deep single rudder sits in the propwash, which helps in tight marinas.

Engine access is under the companionway steps with an extra panel in the aft cabin. Yachting Monthly found the primary fuel filter awkward to reach and suggested relocating it, a job worth doing before your first long trip.

The cockpit kitchen at the stern

The feature most owners show off is the transom. Under way, a long seat spans the stern and gives the helmsman several places to sit. At anchor the platform drops, the starboard seat folds out of the way and the port side opens to reveal a sink, a grill, the propane locker and the liferaft stowage. Cruising World's judges thought it a clever use of space that used to be a fender locker. Teak toerails, a low boom you can reach from the deck and a short sprit that can take the tack of an asymmetric round out the deck.

Build quality and the wiring complaint

SAIL rated the joinery as precise and attractive and found the plumbing neat, labeled and double-clamped. Its one structural gripe was electrical: all positive leads behind the panel were red, so a technician needs the wiring diagrams to trace a fault. Ask the seller for those diagrams. Yachting Monthly called the construction methods a bit utilitarian but concluded that most buyers would look past them for a simple, capable coastal cruiser.

What the used market looks like

Built from 2018 to 2022, the 360 is a young boat, and many went into charter fleets in Europe and the Caribbean. In the US expect about $115,000 to $165,000 in 2026. In the UK, a broker interviewed by Yachting World sold a four-year-old, lightly used example for a little over £100,000 and said the buyers skipped the survey because the boat was so new. We would not, especially on an ex-charter boat: check the saildrive, rudder bearing, platform hinges and the gelcoat around the stern.