Allied Mistress 39 Mk II Buyer's Guide
Shopping the brokerage market for a used Allied Mistress 39 Mk II means looking at a ketch-rigged heavy cruiser from the late-seventies Allied Boat Company line, designed by Arthur H. Edmunds Jr. and built with a solid fiberglass hull, long keel, and encapsulated lead ballast. These are boats of serious displacement — about 20,800 pounds with a 38 percent ballast ratio — and they reward a buyer who values stability and payload over speed to weather in light air.
Layouts on the Used Market
The Mistress 39 Mk II carries a 38-foot-6-inch hull on a 29-foot-8-inch waterline with a 12-foot beam and a long-keel, attached-rudder profile drawing roughly 4.5 to 4.8 feet loaded. That long-keel hull and heavy displacement produce an immersion rate near 1,246 pounds per inch, so the boat sits deep and trims slowly — a layout consequence buyers notice when loading provisions or water. Earlier examples used woodgrain Formica cabin veneer; later builds in the production run moved to natural wood finishes. The ketch rig is split for manageable short-handed sail handling, and the 365 square feet of wetted surface plus 7.3-knot theoretical hull speed define a passage-oriented rather than a day-sailing layout.
Equipment and Common Upgrades
On the used market, these boats commonly carry air conditioning, an inverter, a wind generator, a freezer, radar, autopilot, and a chartplotter as factory-era or early owner additions. For a buyer, the meaningful clusters are power and energy — inverter and wind generator speak to off-grid cruising independence — and navigation and comfort, where radar, autopilot, and chartplotter reduce watch stress and air conditioning with a freezer extends tropical livability. A wind generator paired with an inverter is the sort of energy setup that matters more on a heavy-displacement cruiser than on a lighter boat.
What to Inspect
The balsa-cored deck is the principal area to examine for moisture intrusion, since a cored structure can hide rot where fasteners or fittings penetrate. The hull-to-deck joint was built with an outward-turned flange through-bolted on five-inch centers and glassed over internally, so check for any separation or rubrail leakage at that seam. Because the lead ballast is encapsulated in the keel layup rather than bolted on, inspect the keel fairing and glass for cracks or impact damage that could admit water to the encapsulation.
Availability and Buyer's Takeaway
These yachts are typically found in the United States. For a buyer, the practical checklist is: confirm deck-core dryness around all penetrations; examine the hull-to-deck flange and rubrail for sealed integrity; look for keel-glass damage on the encapsulated ballast; and verify the ketch rigging sizes — 31-meter half-inch halyards and 14 mm sheets — are intact. A sound Mistress 39 Mk II is a stable, payload-capable cruiser for the right owner.
Price & volume trends
Monthly asking-price and listing-volume trends for the Allied Mistress 39 Mk II. The line shows the median ask each month; the bars show how many listings appeared.
Comparable models
Similar length, displacement, and era. Open a row to compare that model's market page.
Similar boats to compare
4 similar designs| Model | LOA | Median ask | Listings · 12 mo | Active · 90 d |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sabre 38 Mk II | 38.67' | $ 60,000 | 17 | 1 |
| Hans Christian 38 Mk II | 46' | $ 79,900 | 11 | 3 |
| Oyster Yachts 39 | 40.68' | $ 52,451 | 9 | 3 |
| Nicholson 39 | 39' | $ 101,937 | 8 | 3 |