Dufour 455 Grand Large, a Used Cruiser Buyer's Guide

A production 45 that keeps going north

Martine and Christian le Cleach bought their Dufour 455 Grand Large, Fleur de Sel, in 2007 with Norway already on the list. Seventeen years later the boat had taken them from Martinique to Helsinki, three times up the Norwegian coast, across to Svalbard and down to the Dodecanese, and they were still spending at least five months a year aboard. That is the most useful thing to know about the dufour 455: under the boat show gloss there is a hull and deck that can take real miles.

The boat was the flagship of the cruising range Dufour built after Cantiere del Pardo, owner of Grand Soleil, bought the French yard in the early 2000s. SAIL sailed the prototype in Majorca in 2005, Cruising World put a 2006 boat through its Boat of the Year trials in Annapolis, and Dufour's own site still listed the 455 in 2010 before the 445 Grand Large took over the slot. Today it is a used boat only, and a good value one if you buy carefully.

Why it carries three digits

In the mid-2000s Dufour split its range in two. Performance models such as the 40e and 45e carried two-digit names, taller rigs and deeper keels. Grand Large cruisers carried three digits, a little more depth and fullness in the hull, a shorter rig and a shallower fin. The 455 was pitched by Dufour USA as the family alternative to the Performance 44, with the master cabin moved about 5 feet farther aft and a deck-access sail locker between it and the chain locker.

That history matters on the used market. A 45e Performance and a 455 Grand Large from the same years look related but are different boats with different priorities, and listings sometimes blur them. The 455 is the one with the bigger cockpit, the fuller sections and the cruising tankage of 66 gallons of fuel and 140 gallons of water.

• Dufour 455 Grand Large: 2005 to about 2010, cruising hull, 3 or 4 cabins
• Dufour 445 Grand Large: its successor in the same size slot
• Dufour 45e Performance: the sportier contemporary with a taller rig

A hull that wakes up at 14 knots

Umberto Felci drew a hull with full ends, a deep body and very shallow bow sections. SAIL noted that the first 2 or 3 feet of the bow hang clear of the water at rest and only immerse when the boat heels and passes about 4 knots. The consequence showed in its test: hard on the wind in 12 knots and a short chop, the prototype pounded and made about 4.5 knots. Once the true wind reached 14 knots it was storming along at close to 7 knots with a light helm, stood up to its sail with no sign of needing a reef in 20 knots apparent, and touched 8 knots on a close reach.

Cruising World had a gusty northerly off Annapolis, the kind of afternoon that had other test boats reefing, and found the 455 stood up fine under full main and a 130 percent genoa. Sail area to displacement works out at about 16.8, which is conservative, so expect a sluggish boat in under 8 knots of breeze and a satisfying one above 12. Christian le Cleach added a furling staysail for that reason, so he could stop rolling up the genoa every time it blew Force 5 and keep the boat on its feet.

Twin wheels, but the mainsheet lives forward

The cockpit is big, deep and secure, with sturdy quarter pulpits, a solid table and a folding aft seat that doubles as a boarding step. Dufour fitted generous Harken winches, 53.2 primaries aft and 44.2 halyard winches on the coachroof, and the genoa sheets can be worked from either wheel. The weak spot is the mainsail: every main control runs to either side of the companionway, well out of reach of the helmsman. Both magazines said a single watchkeeper needs an autopilot to trim the main, and SAIL added that two people are needed to sail the boat properly without one.

The rig is a deck-stepped Sparcraft 15/16 fractional with double swept spreaders and continuous rigging. All shrouds land on one chainplate per side close to the cabin trunk, which keeps the side decks clear and lets the headsail sheet tight. Forward, twin bow rollers on a stainless support and a partly recessed windlass make anchoring easy, and the deep sail locker swallows fenders, lines and a folding bike.

Moabi joinery and a master cabin forward

Below, the 455 came with three or four cabins. The two versions are identical aft of the main bulkhead: a long galley to port against the head, a curved dinette to starboard, a proper chart table and two aft doubles separated by a technical space for batteries and machinery. The three-cabin layout gives the owner a forward stateroom with an island berth, private head and stall shower, lit by two escape-size hatches. The four-cabin layout splits that space and suits charter better than a couple.

All joinery is moabi, a mahogany-like wood finished in gloss varnish and never painted, so the boat is warm rather than dark thanks to plenty of hatches and ports. Headroom is generous. Cruising World flagged two quirks, a tiny bilge sump and a galley that lacks full-length bracing for the cook on port tack, and praised small things such as foam strips that stop the sole boards rattling and a heavy stainless bonding strap tying the keel bolts into the grounding system.

Lessons from a boat with 17 years of hard use

Fleur de Sel is a good template for anyone planning more than summer weekends. The owners kept the Eberspacher diesel heater but added a Refleks drip stove for Svalbard because it needs no electricity. A full cockpit enclosure turned the cockpit into a greenhouse in high latitudes. A 220V inverter runs a coffee machine and microwave, and 150W of solar plus a D400 wind generator cover the loads. They found a watermaker less useful in cold northern water than in the tropics.

Christian chose the 455 over rivals because it felt more seaworthy, with stronger deck hardware and handholds everywhere, and because it is fast. His additions, a staysail on a furler and a spinnaker retrieval line led to the cockpit, are exactly the upgrades a short-handed couple should look for in a listing.

Buying one at 15 to 20 years old

Every 455 is now between about 16 and 21 years old, so the boat in front of you is defined by its maintenance history more than by its design. The saildrive is the first item: Volvo's rubber diaphragm seal has a fixed replacement interval and many owners ignore it. Ask for the date and the invoice. Standing rigging that is original is due for replacement regardless of how it looks, and on continuous rigging that is a full re-rig, not a couple of wires.

Dufour built the hull with an NPG gelcoat and NPG resin skin coat against osmosis and an aramid-reinforced inner grid under the keel. Still, check the grid and keel floors for cracking at the forward and aft keel bolts, especially on ex-charter boats, and look at the glued-down teak decks if fitted. Expect $15,000 to $30,000 a year for slip, insurance, hauling and routine work on the East Coast, more if you are catching up on deferred jobs.

Where the 455 sits on the US market

Most US boats came through Dufour Yachts USA in Annapolis, and they turn up mainly on the Chesapeake, in New England and in Florida. Expect asking prices from about $115,000 for an early boat needing work to around $195,000 for a well-equipped 2009 or 2010 example, against a 2006 landed price of $306,250. That makes the 455 one of the cheaper ways into a 45-foot European cruiser with real tankage.

The trade-off is draft. Both keels, 6 ft 7 in and 7 ft 3 in, are deeper than many Chesapeake and Bahamas sailors would like. The shoal version is the easier boat to own and to sell on in US waters.