Hallberg-Rassy 352 for Sale, A Used Buyer's Guide to the 802-Hull Classic

Shopping for a Hallberg Rassy 352 for sale

If you are hunting for a Hallberg Rassy 352 for sale, you are looking at one of the most numerous small ocean cruisers ever built in Sweden. The yard in Ellös produced 802 hulls between 1978 and 1991, which means there is almost always a choice of boats somewhere, although the bulk of them sit in Scandinavian, German and British marinas rather than on the US East Coast. Expect to widen the search to Europe and to treat shipping or a delivery passage as part of the purchase.

That volume is good news. Hallberg-Rassy still publishes the original manual, the standard specification, wiring diagrams, rudder construction sketches and cutless bearing instructions for the 352 on its own website, and owners' associations are active. Few 40-year-old 35-footers are this well documented, and that alone makes a 352 easier to survey, repair and insure than an orphan design of similar age.

Enderlein's trick, an aft cabin you can walk to

Olle Enderlein drew the 352 with Christoph Rassy, and the yard still describes it as the first time a designer combined a walk-through to the aft cabin with genuinely elegant lines on a 35-foot hull. That passage, which runs beside the engine compartment under the center cockpit and doubles as the engine access, is what sold the boat. A couple gets a private double cabin aft with its own hanging locker and an escape hatch to deck, while guests or children use the V-berth forward, and nobody has to climb through the cockpit at night.

The rest of the arrangement is conventional and seamanlike. From forward there is a gas locker over the chain, the forecabin with two 6 ft 8 in berths, a pair of hanging lockers to starboard, and a surprisingly roomy head to port with a teak grating shower floor. The saloon has an L-shaped settee to port and a straight settee to starboard, both about 6 ft 6 in long, around a table with folding leaves. Aft of the saloon sit a U-shaped galley and the navigation table, then the walk-through with a small workbench.

Headroom is about 6 ft in the saloon and head, which is honest rather than generous. Taller buyers should stand in the passage aft before getting attached, because that is where the 352 feels its age.

Fourteen years of running changes, and how to date a boat

The 352 was never formally split into Mk I and Mk II versions, but the yard kept refining it, and those changes matter when you compare listings. Hallberg-Rassy's own history lists them:

• 1980: the hull was raised a couple of centimeters, adding headroom in the walk-through and aft cabin.
• Late 1984: the Volvo Penta MD21 went out of production and the 43 hp Volvo Penta 2003 Turbo replaced it. A few boats near the end of the run got the larger MD22.
• 1984 to 1985: a better galley work area, a separate companionway ladder, an improved cockpit locker drain and spring cleats moved up onto the teak toe rail.
• Around 1986: a larger saloon skylight, louvered saloon locker doors like the bigger Rassys, and another small increase in hull height for volume below.

Standard rig or tall rig, the spreader count tells you

Two masthead rigs were offered. The standard rig has a single set of spreaders and an air draft of 47 ft 8 in above the waterline; the tall rig has double spreaders and stands 51 ft 3 in. Early buyers mostly took the standard rig, while by the end of production nearly every boat left Ellös with the tall one, and any 352 ordered with in-mast furling automatically got the tall mast. Sail area with the working jib on the standard rig is about 52.5 square meters, rising to 64 square meters with a genoa.

On paper the boat is not quick. Sailboatdata gives a sail area to displacement ratio of 16, a displacement to length ratio of about 282 and a ballast ratio near 45 percent. Translated, that is a stiff, steady boat that needs a decent breeze to wake up and rewards a big genoa or a tall rig in light-air areas like the Chesapeake or Long Island Sound. Its theoretical hull speed is a little over 7 knots, and in practice the boat is about steady progress and an easy motion rather than short-tacking past newer designs. If most of your sailing is in light summer air, the tall rig is worth paying for.

Small, old and still crossing oceans

The best evidence that a 352 can go offshore comes from owners rather than brochures. In the 2018 ARC+, hull No. 125, Concubine, sailed double-handed by Mats Jones and Ragnar Sandberg, took second place in category C while being the smallest and oldest boat in the fleet. Its comfort ratio of about 30 and capsize screening value of 1.81 put it in moderate bluewater territory, and the encapsulated keel removes the keel bolt question entirely.

What limits offshore use is volume, not strength. Tankage is 240 liters (about 63 gallons) of diesel in two tanks and 300 liters (79 gallons) of water, stowage is that of a mid-1980s 35-footer, and the single head is shared. Couples doing trade wind passages manage well; a crew of four on a long passage will find it tight.

What forty years does to a Rassy

Hallberg-Rassy built the 352 with a hand-laid hull, a 25 mm foam-cored deck, a hull to deck joint laminated over and capped by a teak bulwark, and a fixed windscreen of hardened glass in alloy frames. The structure has aged well across the fleet. The weak points are the bolt-on and glued-on parts that any 1980s cruiser has.

Start with the laid teak deck, which was half-inch teak over fiberglass. Many are now thin, with proud fastenings and failed seams, and a replacement is a five-figure job. Then look at the engine: an original MD21 is a museum piece, and parts are getting harder to source, so a repowered boat or a well-maintained 2003T is worth paying more for. Ask about the rudder and its bronze stock and fittings, the cutless bearing and shaft seal, and the standing rig age, because many 352s still carry the original chainplates. The encapsulated ballast is cast iron sealed inside the hull; any grounding damage that broke the laminate can let water reach it and should be repaired properly.

Running a 352 on a US budget

Because the boat is small and simple, annual costs are modest: roughly $7,000 to $16,000 a year in the US covering a 35-foot slip or mooring, insurance, haul-out and bottom paint, engine service and a sinking fund for sails and rigging. A mooring in New England or the Great Lakes keeps the lower figure realistic; a Florida marina slip pushes toward the top.

Fuel is a minor line. The 43 hp 2003T is a three-cylinder turbo diesel and a 352 motoring at a sensible 5.5 to 6 knots burns very little, though no published test figures exist. Bigger bills come from catch-up maintenance on a neglected boat, so pay for a thorough survey and price the deck, engine and rig before agreeing a number.

The rare hardtop 352 and other variants

A handful of 352s were built with a hardtop. To fit headroom under it the yard used a deeper cockpit, which removed the walk-through, so on those boats the aft cabin is reached only from the cockpit. They are rare and appeal to cold-climate sailors, but the loss of the interior passage changes how the boat lives and they are harder to resell.

You will also see boats with in-mast furling (always tall rig), retrofitted roller furling genoas, added solar arches and davits. Davits on a 35-foot center cockpit boat can overload the stern; check the mounting and the boat's trim. Some owners have replaced the original engine with a Beta Marine or newer Volvo, which is usually a plus if the installation and paperwork are tidy.