SWY 390 vs HR 36

While you still sort only by "about twelve metres", the seller already puts another Hallberg-Rassy on the table. On two cards the HR 36 shares one name and a close length, yet the stern in the photos lives differently: one has a platform and a different life in the aft cabin, the other a older cut. In the same metre class a Sweden Yachts 390 with the cockpit aft sometimes appears. That is no longer an argument about centimetres; it is a fork of liquidity and helm.

The SWY 390 is an aft-cockpit boat by Peter Norlin and Jens Östmann, years 1991-1998, about 47 hulls. Length about 11.88 m, beam about 3.87 m, displacement about 7.6 t. The builder's plate often shows a Volvo MD2040 at about 40 hp; "50 hp" in the listing is more often a later swap. If the card shows years 2010-2018, beam 3.55 m, or an end-of-series "to 2006" from a reference site, check the plate on the boat: 3.55 m is already the typical beam of the neighbouring HR 36, and years after 1998 for this series need the hull, not someone else's table.

The HR 36 is a centre-cockpit Germán Frers boat, 1989-2003, about 602 hulls per the yard's previous-models page. Beam about 3.55 m, lightship about 7.5 t. Under one name live Mk I and Mk II: the step in the transom and aft cabin changes daily life more than the length line. Until the plate and the stern in the photos are read, two "HR 36" boats cannot be treated as interchangeable.

Under way the difference is heard before the numbers: the SWY more often asks for hands and attention from the open stern; the HR more often keeps the crew behind the coachroof and sells to people who recognise the badge in the marina. So the thin SWY pool lengthens both the search and the exit, while on the HR it is not the "name" that breaks price but an unchecked Mk and condition.

If you can haul both before a deposit, start with the HR stern and hull number: Mk I is not Mk II by feel or in photos. Walk the teak with your fingers. On both hulls look for water at the deck entries of the standing rigging (the wires that hold the mast) and marks at the chainplates (the metal fittings that take the load into the hull). On the SWY add your own list: which keel that hull carries, engine hours, and the age of the saildrive rubber diaphragm (saildrive: the leg with the propeller exits through the bottom; the seal around that leg is a timed consumable). If the power plate is no longer an MD2040, read the bed for fresh sealant. Prove the rigging with invoices. At sea, not in a LOA table, it becomes clear which helm you are paying liquidity for.

A year of ownership here turns on liquidity. A rare SWY is cheaper to "know" on the pontoon but dearer to sell again; an HR returns to the market more easily if the Mk is proven and the teak is not a surprise, and without that a "deep pool" does not save the price. Into the year band go berth, insurance, winter after haul-out, and a reserve for deck and rigging; a full teak campaign sits outside it. Convert your euros in the ownership calculator; the SEK columns below only give an order of magnitude for the class.

We do not promise a purchase price or an "ideal" survey. Laminate, the keel on that SWY, teak scope, and system age are read only on a hauled hull. Sea time and an independent surveyor are not replaced by this text.