Finngulf 44 Sailboat Review, Specs, and Listings

Design and Construction

The 44's hull is solid fiberglass, laid up without a core, and the deck follows the same solid-glass approach. At 44 feet overall with a 36.75-foot waterline, she draws between 7.22 and 7.52 feet depending on load, riding a fin keel with a spade rudder. Her beam is 12.75 feet, giving an length-to-beam ratio of 3.45 — slimmer than 58 percent of comparable sailboat designs, which puts her in the narrow end of the cruiser spectrum for her length. That slenderness is offset by a 40 percent ballast ratio, with 9,020 pounds of lead in the keel; that figure sits higher than 66 percent of similar designs, and the 22,660-pound displacement carries a displacement-to-length ratio of 204, a number that classifies her among moderate racers rather than heavy bluewater luggers. Sixty-nine percent of similar designs are heavier than she is.

Stability and Motion

The numbers tell a coherent story about how the 44 behaves at sea. Her capsize screening value is 1.80, and her Motion Comfort Ratio comes in at 30.1 — more comfortable than 42 percent of similar sailboat designs, so she is no pillow, but the deep ballast and moderate beam keep her settled. The immersion rate of about 1,634 pounds per inch means she sits her load with composure, and the wetted surface of roughly 548 square feet is consistent with a fin-keeled hull of this proportion. Under power the calculated maximum is 6.7 knots, while her theoretical displacement-hull speed is 8.1 knots under sail.

Rig and Sail Plan

The Finngulf 44 is built with a masthead sloop rig carrying 925 square feet of sail area, yielding a sail-area-to-displacement ratio of 18.48 — enough to keep her moving in modest breeze without tipping into overcanvased territory for a 22,660-pound hull. The standing and running gear follow period masthead practice: jib and genoa sheets run about 44 feet at 5/8-inch diameter, the mainsheet is a 110-foot line of the same diameter, and the spinnaker sheet runs just under 97 feet. These are working lengths for a boat of her rig, not oversized for short-handed trimming but within normal range for a 44-foot masthead.

Accommodations and Layout

The 44 is a large sailboat with a solid-glass deck and hull, a fin keel, and a masthead rig, but the interior plan is simply not described in the sourced material. What can be said is that the slender beam and 36.75-foot waterline suggest a cabin volume tuned for passage work rather than maximum square footage, and the 50-horsepower Volvo Penta MD22 diesel with saildrive would have powered her systems and docking routine.

Known Issues

The saildrive transmission paired with the Volvo Penta MD22 is a known maintenance point on any such installation — the rubber diaphragm and shaft seals require periodic inspection and replacement. The solid fiberglass hull and deck avoid the cored-structure water-intrusion risks that plague some contemporaries, though this stands as construction fact rather than a documented advantage.

The Verdict

The Finngulf 44 is a quietly competent Södergren design from the early nineties: slim, well-ballasted, and moderately racer-like in her displacement tuning, built in solid glass with a masthead rig and a saildrive diesel. She is rare, which cuts both ways for an owner — few sisters to compare notes with, but a distinctive hull that does not follow the fat-beam cruiser fashion of her era.

Pros

Slimmer than 58 percent of similar designs with a ballast ratio higher than 66 percent of them
Solid fiberglass hull and deck, no cored structure
Moderate-racer displacement tuning with a 18.48 sail-area-to-displacement ratio

Cons