Design and Construction
The 52 carries the construction language that defined Sweden Yachts through its Norlin and Östmann years: a fiberglass hull and deck built as a balsa-cored sandwich anchor. The keel itself is lead, and the design was offered with two distinct keel alternatives—a wing keel drawing roughly 6.5 to 6.8 feet depending on load, and a fin keel drawing about 8.5 to 8.8 feet anchor. Both configurations limit the yacht to major-marina access. At a beam of just over 14 feet and a length overall north of 52 feet, the hull carries a displacement near 34,000 pounds with close to 13,200 pounds of ballast, a 39 percent ballast-displacement ratio that places her firmly in the serious offshore cruiser class. The CE certification as Class A OCEAN confirms the design brief was blue-water, not coastal.
Rig and Handling
The boat is a masthead sloop carrying a mainsail-plus-jib area of 115 square meters, with a 135 percent genoa pushing the sail-area-to-displacement ratio to 23.3 and the ISO reference sail giving 19.7. The theoretical hull speed sits at 8.6 knots with a calculated maximum near 8.2. A capsize screening value of 1.76 and a motion comfort ratio of 33.8 describe a vessel tuned for steadiness offshore rather than raw acceleration. The standing and running rig dimensions are generous for a 52-footer: halyards run 48 meters at 14 mm, the mainsheet is nearly 40 meters at 16 mm, and the wetted bottom surface spans about 60 square meters, a figure that helps explain the immersion rate of roughly 367 kilograms per centimeter anchor.
Accommodations
Below, the interior is mahogany, in keeping with the yard's other yachts of the period. The boat was fitted with eight berths, a galley, a toilet facility, 700 liters of fresh water, and 240 liters of waste water capacity. The 185-gallon fuel tank supports the optional Volvo Penta TMD 31 diesel at 100 horsepower, delivered through a shaft drive. Those tankages and berth count describe a boat planned for extended crewed cruising rather than short-handed coastal hopping.
The Verdict
The Sweden Yachts 52 is a one-of-a-kind expression of the Norlin-Östmann design partnership at its most mature. As the only built example, she represents the yard's ocean-class sandwich construction at scale. For the buyer who encounters her, the appeal lies in the specification: lead keel, Class A certification, and a thoroughly planned cruising interior.
Pros
- Only one hull built in 1996 under the Norlin-Östmann partnership
- Balsa-cored fiberglass sandwich hull and deck with lead keel
- CE Class A OCEAN certification for offshore use
- Eight berths with 700 liters fresh and 700 liters fuel capacity
Cons
- Only one hull exists, limiting comparative ownership data
- Fin-keel draft of 8.5–8.8 feet restricts marina access
