James S. Krogen, who earned a degree in naval architecture form the University of Michigan, made his first appearance in the design section of Yachting 26 years ago. Since then, he has devoted most of his work to commercial vessels and offshore cruisers. In 1976, he designed a 42’ full-displacement, trawler-type yacht for the late Art Kadey, who had his own maritime services business in Miami, Fla., and appreciated the concept of an efficient, seakindly hull. Art and Jim subsequently became partners in a venture to produce the yacht in Taiwan, and the designer’s two sons, Jim and Kurt, well grounded in what constitutes a well-built vessel, became the principal overseers of construction.

Teak planking with rubberized seams is overlaid on boat deck and bridge.  Note stainless mast tabernacle, portlights below wheel that open from pilothouse.

    The Krogen 42’ Trawler Yacht actually measures 42’ 4” x 39’ 6” x 15’ 0” x 4’ 7” and displaces 39,000 lb. when carrying half her 700 gallons of fuel and 360 gallons of water. With fuel efficiency, safety, and comfort in a seaway the primary consideration, she was given a fine entry, a deep forefoot, a long keel, and a nice run aft. Jim Krogen makes a point of the fact that her rounded transom is lifted out of the water, eliminating need for the power that is necessary to overcome the drag of a chine hull with a heavily loaded stern. She’s easily driven with a single Lehman Ford 120-hp. diesel that turns a 28” x 19” three-bladed propeller on a two-inch stainless steel shaft through a 3:1 reduction gear.

Her top speed is nine knots at 2,300 r.p.m., and at eight knots, burning less than two gallons per hour, she has a range of close to 2,800 nautical miles. For anyone overly concerned about the reliability of a single diesel (even one provided with good fuel filtration and an oil analysis program that will pinpoint wear), Jim Krogen has designed an optional emergency hydraulic drive that is belted to the propeller shaft and runs off a recommended 12-kw. optional generator. It will drive the yacht at about five knots.
    Russell Spets, president of Sea Hawk Yacht Sales Inc., 1517 Capella South, Goat Island, Newport, R.I. 02840, is a dealer who handles the Krogen 42, and I drove there to see one he and his wife Helen had lived

aboard for some time. In fact, they lived aboard last winter, moored at Bowen’s Wharf in Newport, and were very comfortable.
    The Krogen 42 is a salty-looking yacht – the type that often appeals to converted sailors or powerboat-men who have given up or never cared about skimming the surface at high speed.  In profile from afar, she appears to have a slightly elongated stack at the after end of the pilothouse. Up close, it is seen to be a fair-weather flying bridge about nine feet wide – fully instrumented, with a central helmsman’s seat, fore-and-aft stowage box/seats for three on each side, and two small stowage compartments forward. If desired, it is easily sheltered with a Bimini top. A nice feature below the control panel on each side of the destroyer-type wheel is a pair of rectangular portlights that open from the pilothouse; they not only serve for light and ventilation, but for communication and passage of food and drink from below.
    Just aft of the flying bridge, an aluminum mast in a stainless steel tabernacle carries a boom for launching and retrieving a small boat or spreading an optional steadying sail. The boat deck itself, railed in with stainless steel, has ample room for sunbathing and extends forward on each side of the bridge, making it easy to snap on a

Pilothouse has central control station with hydraulic steering, tinted safety-glass windows, seat/berth aft, teak parquet sole, Dutch doors port and starboard.

canvas bridge cover or side curtains beneath a Binimi top. Access to the bridge and boat deck is from the cockpit aft, via a ladder and a hatchway.
    Below, the teak-planked cockpit sole, or afterdeck, is on the same level as relatively wide side decks that extend up to three steps on each side at the after end of the pilothouse, and the foredeck level begins just aft of the pilothouse doors. With the boat deck carried out to the maximum beam, and its wide, outboard supports carried down to ample, teak-capped bulwarks, the side decks are semi-enclosed, and it lends the feeling of a little ship as one proceeds forward.
    Forward, stainless steel stanchions with plastic-coated  steel wire lifelines are deck-mounted, inboard of the bulwarks, and only the pulpit rail is mounted on the bulwarks. The pulpit itself is of heavy teak, with rollers for two anchors, and a windlass of the owner’s choice is mounted at its after end.
    Except for the pulpit, two deck pipes for the anchor rodes, and bronze hawseholes incorporating cleats, the foredeck is a clear expanse with an athwartships seat molded in on the forward side to the deckhouse. An interesting feature of the seat is that the top is hinged to cover a sliding hatch to the master stateroom on the starboard side and a stowage box on the port side. Louvers in its forward face also direct air to port and starboard vents for the master stateroom.
As the interior photographs indicate, Russell and Helen had provided a comfortable live-aboard atmosphere, with rugs adding to the warmth of fine teak joiner work and teak-faced overhead beams against white paneling. Everything seen is standard except the furniture in

the saloon. Against the counter separating the galley from the mainpart of the saloon is a well-built, drop-leaf, gate-leg storage table sold by Brazil Contempo of New York City. Folded, it measures only 13” x 34” x 29” and four folding chairs stow behind a tambour door at one end while the other end has a silverware drawer. Built of stained beech with a choice to teak, walnut or natural beech veneers, it is on caster and opens to 34” x 62”, seating six. The f.o.b. price is $239.

    The galley, which has top and bottom lockers, a double sink, and a trash compartment in the divider, includes drawers and a three-burner Princess stove with oven against the outboard side and a locker plus a refrigerator and a freezer aft. Both the refrigerator and freezer are conveniently worked in beneath a combination watch berth/seat in the pilothouse.
    Forward and below, there is a choice of three arrangements in the guest stateroom to starboard: one can have the upper and lower berths shown in the plan drawing, a double berth in their place, or a den arrangement such as in the boat I was aboard. In the latter case, a transverse upper berth is hinged against the forward bulkhead, an L-shaped settee berth is to starboard, a locker is aft, and a desk is forward. The hull ceiling seen above the shelf in the last photo is plywood covered with evenly spaced teak strips.
    Opposite the guest stateroom, adjacent to the passageway steps, a standard Frigidaire washer/dryer is installed, and the exhaust from the dryer is carried off through  a duct beneath the steps leading up to the pilothouse. Through a generator isn’t standard, the yacht is completely wired for 100-v. a.c. and water is heated electrically or by means of heating coils at the main engine. The guest head just forward of the washer/dryer has a stainless

steel oval sink in a plastic-laminate counter trimmed with teak, a locker below, and shelves, a medicine cabinet, and a bronze opening portlight above. At the forward end, a separate stall shower with a teak grate has a molded seat and pan; in effect, it’s a tub/shower with a hot and cold faucet below the telephone-type shower head and is stepped into through a raised opening.
   The full-width master stateroom, with double berth, below-berth drawers, night table and hull-side shelf to starboard, has excellent sole area. The port side, with bureau, hanging locker, and the third of three portlights, is seen in one of the photographs. Its athwartships head is well organized, with ample sole and locker space and the separate stall shower centered aft of the divided chain locker – to which there is a door from the shower. All the space is carefully worked out.
    The pilothouse affords a good field of vision, though for certain docking situations it might be desirable to go to the flying bridge. It’s a spacious, livable part of the yacht, and besides the seat/berth with folding step aft, includes a good chart table and drawers, stowage lockers and cabinets for electronics, a wet locker to port, and the 12-v. d.c. and 110-v. a.c. panels. The console has full instrumentation and the steering is hydraulic. The sole is teak parquet. A helmsman’s seat is seen in the photo, but it is optional.
    Hull construction is of fiberglass with an Airex foam core and four glassed-in bottom stringers that reduce to two forward. The deck is a composite, built up with mahogany beams below, ¾” plywood, two layers of fiberglass matte and roving, and ½” planking with Thiokol seams. The overhead is fiberglass, cored with squares of plywood to achieve the curve and finished on the interior with a fiberglass molding and exposed beams.  Fiberglass and a teak capping covers the mahogany beams inside; outside, where the span covers the side decks, they are closed in. She’s a heavily built

Galley forward in the saloon has refrigerator and freezer above counter.  Starboard steps lead to the pilothouse.

Post at galley corner is structural.  Teak joiner work and overhead beams lend warmth to a comfortable saloon.

Port side of master stateroom has a large hanging locker.  Double berth opposite is reflected in the dresser mirror.

Guest stateroom or den (here laid out different from plan) has drop-down upper berth on the forward bulkhead.

boat, with all the interior teak, teak decks, bronze deck hardware and portlights, a bronze rub rail, and a teak plank ceiling in the cockpit and side deck areas.
    Equipment in the engine room includes a 12-gallon water heater, a water pressure system, one of two automatic bilge pumps, a blower, an emergency bilge pump that uses the engine raw-water pump, and two battery banks. The fuel tanks are fiberglass with sight gauges. The seacocks and through-hull fittings are bronze and the engine is equipped with a primary fuel filter and a water-cooled, muffled exhaust.
    All the fittings are bonded.

Maximum headroom is 54”, and all routine maintenance would be easy to carry out, using an access hatch near the galley and leaving four main hatches in the saloon in place.
    Russell Spets recently sold a Krogen 42’ to Kim Sears of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Kim owns a liquor store in Oak Bluffs, but had previously owned a 72’ dragger as a commercial fisherman. On a delivery run in his new Gulliver T, he and Russell had eight-foot beam and quartering seas and Kim sat on the after rail for about two hours studying the motion.  “She feels just like a fishing boat,” he

announced when he came forward to Russell at the wheel. That’s a pretty good recommendation, and one that I can believe, even though I didn’t have the opportunity to experience the boat outside Newport Harbor. The base price is pretty good, too – about $106,000.

    For more information, contact Kadey-Krogen Yachts Inc., 290 North Dixie Highway, Stuart, FL 34994.

Jack Smith is senior editor of Yachting.