Krogen Express 52 Review, the Commuter-Styled Trawler That Can Also Run

Krogen Express for sale, and why it is not a Kadey-Krogen

Anyone shopping Krogen Express for sale listings should get one point straight first: Krogen Express is not Kadey-Krogen. Soundings noted that people often mistakenly think the two are the same company. The roots are shared, but the businesses are separate, and that matters more than ever in 2026, after Power & Motoryacht reported in July that Kadey-Krogen would file for Chapter 7. Krogen Express continued to list new 2027 KE52s for sale as of September 2026.

The story starts in the early 1990s, when Kurt Krogen, son of designer Jim Krogen of Kadey-Krogen, wanted an elegant, efficient power cruiser inspired by the 1920s Manhattan commuter yachts. A separate company was formed, and the Krogen Express 49 launched in 1996. Power & Motoryacht reports that a couple of years later it was also offered with a 4-foot cockpit extension as the 53.

After a 16-boat run of the 49, John and Betsie Tegtmeyer, who had owned a Kadey-Krogen 42 and then a KE49, bought the company in 2001. Working with Kurt Krogen, they reworked the boat into the Krogen Express 52, which launched in 2002 with new tooling. Tegtmeyer says the company has made more than 150 changes since hull number one, most of them small refinements.

A hull that is two boats in one

The KE52's hull is its reason to exist. Power & Motoryacht described a soft-chine, full-displacement form forward that transforms into a hard-chine, semi-displacement form aft of amidships, then flattens to a 5-degree deadrise at the stern. The narrow, commuter-like entry slices chop, while the flat, hard-chined run aft lets the boat climb to 15 to 20-plus knots and damps rolling at anchor.

That compromise is what the fast-trawler label means, and Power & Motoryacht's later used-boat review argued the Krogens drew one of the best examples, combining the seakindliness of a displacement boat with the speed of a planing hull. The tester in 2005 found trim never exceeded 4 degrees at wide open throttle and that the boat rolled softly and recovered quickly beam-to, without the weeble-wobble of many round-bilge trawlers.

The price of a slender bow is spray. The same test noted water coming over the bow rails into a chop because of limited flare, and one owner fitted a full enclosure on the flybridge. Construction is a solid fiberglass bottom with Airex-cored hull sides and balsa-cored decks and house.

Eight knots or seventeen, the real numbers

Krogen Express says the 52 burns about 3 gallons per hour at 8 knots in displacement mode and cruises at 15 to 17 knots when time matters. Yachting's 2026 brokerage feature quotes a range of 1,680 nautical miles at 8 knots, dropping to about 500 nautical miles at double that speed.

Independent tests line up. Soundings ran a 2018 boat with the optional twin 550 hp Cummins QSB6.7 diesels and saw a top speed of 22 knots at 45 gallons per hour, 28 gph at 17 knots and only 6 to 7 gph at 10 knots. Krogen Express general manager Bob Loudon said most owners cruise between 10 and 15 knots. Power & Motoryacht's 2005 test on the original twin 440 hp Yanmar 6LY2A-STP engines recorded 26.9 mph top speed at 3,300 rpm and a 24.4 mph cruise at 3,000 rpm, and found trim tabs added up to about a mile per hour.

Engines have varied. The current builder spec lists twin 440 hp Yanmar common-rail diesels, Soundings reported 480 hp Yanmar 6LY3A-ETP engines as standard in 2018, and Cummins 550s were optional. Whatever the package, the boat is quiet: Power & Motoryacht measured 78 dBA at the helm at wide open throttle, crediting AquaDrive engine mounts, underwater exhausts and heavy insulation.

• Displacement mode: about 3 gph at 8 knots (builder); 1,680 nm range at 8 knots
• Fast cruise: 28 gph at 17 knots (Soundings, twin Cummins 550)
• Top speed: 22 knots at 45 gph (Soundings, twin Cummins 550)
• Fuel 700 gallons; water 370 gallons; draft 4 feet

Galley up, two staterooms and a walk-in engine room

Inside, the KE52 feels like a trawler. The salon and galley sit on one level just forward of the cockpit, behind wide doors, with light cherry joinery and more than 7 feet of headroom. Soundings' test boat had an L-shaped lounge around a teak table, two swivel chairs and a galley with full-size appliances, an LPG stove and oven and deep fiddles for cooking underway.

Three steps up is the pilothouse with a chart table and drawers to starboard, a solid teak wheel, doors to both side decks and an elevated settee behind the helm. Every KE52 carries a half-hull model on the after pilothouse bulkhead.

Below, the master in the bow has an island queen and en suite head; Power & Motoryacht measured 7 feet 4 inches of headroom. The second stateroom has a desk, an L-shaped settee that converts to a double and a Pullman berth, and owners typically customize it as an office. The guest head with shower is across the passage. The engine room is a genuine walk-in space with full access around both engines, and Power & Motoryacht measured 5 feet 10 inches of headroom at the engines.

What a new 2027 KE52 includes

Krogen Express is offering new KE52s for summer 2027 delivery at $2,899,000 with the standard bimini or $2,999,000 with the factory hardtop, full enclosure and a solar array of more than 1,000 watts. Standard equipment now includes lithium house batteries sized to run stateroom air conditioning overnight, C-Zone digital switching, ABT-TRAC electric fin stabilizers with zero-speed capability and Sleipner proportional bow and stern thrusters.

The company builds every boat at the same Taiwan yard, which it says has hand-crafted Krogen designs for decades. Buyers of new boats get an unlimited new-owner orientation, and Krogen Express advertises lifetime concierge support for owners. For a used buyer, that ongoing factory relationship is a meaningful difference from the Kadey-Krogen situation.

Finding a used KE52, and what to pay

With roughly 27 boats built since 2001, according to PassageMaker in 2026, the brokerage market is thin. Back in 2014, Power & Motoryacht reported that only two of the first 16 52s had ever been up for sale. Owners keep them because the boat does something few others do: it cruises like a trawler at 8 knots and still runs at 16 or 17 when weather or schedules demand it.

The PassageMaker story of Mike and Susie Miner, who bought a 2007 KE52 in Florida and completed the 2,500-mile Down East Circle Route in 2024, is typical. They found the boat with thorough maintenance records, then upgraded electronics, lighting, air conditioning, solar and lithium batteries. They said the ability to run 16 knots on 100-mile crossings was the feature they valued most after years on full-displacement trawlers.

Budget roughly $75,000 to $150,000 a year to run a KE52, with fuel the big variable: 3 gph at 8 knots and around 28 gph at 17 knots make for very different annual bills.