Overview
The Hallberg-Rassy 31 Monsun, launched in 1974, is a straightforward offshore cruiser built to a standard sturdy enough for serious long-distance sailing. Good accommodation, a secure motion, and genuinely handsome lines all played a part in making her the best-selling model the storied Hallberg-Rassy name has ever produced.
She won’t win any races: her displacement is on the heavy side and she doesn’t point especially high in light air, but that isn’t why sailors buy a Monsun. What sells her is stability, a settled, almost leisurely motion offshore that has built real confidence and a strong reputation among the sailors who own one. Kurt Björklund put that reputation to the ultimate test: between 1980 and 1991 he sailed his Monsun 31, Golden Lady, around the world three and a half times. The boat has since been retired to the Råå museum in Scania, Sweden.
Demand for these 1970s-era 31-footers stays high today, prices reflect it, and few owners are looking to part with theirs.
History
The Monsun 31 holds the distinction of being the first entirely new design to come out of Hallberg-Rassy after the 1972 merger that created the company. German expatriate Christophe Rassy bought the well-regarded Hallberg yard when founder Harry Hallberg retired, folding it together with his own operation under the combined name.
At the time, Rassy was doing well with his Rasmus 35, a sturdy center-cockpit cruiser, while Hallberg’s four-boat range, spanning 24 to 33 feet, had a problem child: the Mistress 32, a racing-oriented design successful in IOR half-ton competition but expensive to build and priced too low to make money. The combined company needed a fresh direction.
Rassy turned to designer Olle Enderlein for something like the Rasmus 35, only smaller and sleeker, with an interior built to appeal to cruising couples. Enderlein drew the new layout off the Mistress but simplified it considerably, both easier and cheaper to produce.
The first hull launched in 1974, and production ran to 904 boats before ending in 1982, by which point the Hallberg-Rassy 312 (introduced in 1979) had taken over the model’s role in the lineup.
Construction
Good Old Boat’s own review of the Monsun describes a “solid, massive fiberglass hull” built to Lloyd’s specifications, paired with a deck and cabin trunk laid up as a glass-and-PVC-core sandwich. Internal bulkheads are glassed directly to the hull, and the main bulkhead does double duty as the compression point for the deck-stepped mast. Teak shows up everywhere, companionway frames, grabrails, cockpit seating, and the mahogany interior comes across as simply finished but genuinely well crafted.
Two real inspection points show up on older boats: the rudder’s leading edge has fatigued on some hulls from age and wear, worth checking on any survey, and rotating boom furlers have given some owners enough trouble that they’ve switched to conventional jiffy reefing for serious offshore work.
Specifications
Ballast: 4,200 lbs. Water: 43 US Gal. Fuel: 32 US Gal. Engine: 23hp Volvo Penta MD11C. Total Built: 904.
Links, References and Further Reading
» The official Halberg-Rassy website, information on the Hallberg-Rasssy 31 Monsun» Danish Monsun 31 Owners Club
