Hallberg-Rassy 34

 

To check the engine you can slide out the teak steps in the companionway unit. To service the engine the whole unit is moved. Note the builder has used teak for the wearing surfaces; teak is also used at the head of the companionway, instead of the mahogany, where the weather will have an effect.

Peter Hrones is a six-footer who, wearing shoes, had an inch or two of headroom to spare in the saloon.

On deck you find twin anchor rollers, a Furlex headsail furler, and a Selden gas strut boom vang. The spinny pole is permanently mounted on the mast. The HR trademark windscreen has an opening centre panel, and halyards are led through the base of the screen to jammers on the coachroof. The teak deck is standard.

A tiller is standard (wheel optional) and is fitted with one of those lovely Spinlock extensions, where you press a button in the handle so the extension extends as you move outboard. The Autohelm Tillerpilot is fitted at the factory. In fact everything is fitted at the factory, including cabling for both HF and VHF radios. The boats are even anti-fouled at the factory.

Winches are Lewmar, the primaries No.44. Hatches , some of them unique to HR, are also by Lewmar.

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The main slides up easily on nifty little Frederiksen cars so you need to use the winch only for final tension. On the mooring the headsail is encased in a zippered sausage which hoists on the spinny halyard; ease the halyard, undo the zip as you go and pull down the sausage. To hoist it you really need two people, one on the halyard and one feeding in the bow.

Unroll the jib and we are away, under main and No.2. Pull on the jib car control lines to optimise shape and leech tension . The standard Elvstrom Dacron sails have excellent shape and it was nice to see chafe areas reinforced by greenhide, another traditional material.

Upwind, at first the HL 34 heels easily and I start to move out onto the cockpit coaming, extending the tiller extension as I go and expecting to need a bit of muscle on the tiller to keep her straight. Then the ballast takes charge and the boat stiffens up, refusing to heel further. The load comes off the tiller and the hull accelerates . We did not use the instruments but we definitely had 6 knots in 12-15 knots of breeze. German Frer’s velocity prediction diagram shows that 14 knots of true wind at around 40 degrees True should produce 6.5 knots of boat speed, and I reckon we weren’t far off that on this new boat with a clean bottom.

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