Linssen Boats - good or bad?

[Alicatt]

We have one Linssen in our club, not sure what the model is but it is very nice and well made and the owner is very particular on what he has, it is single engined.

While not the one that has been mentioned on here this is one that was for sale and now sold LINSSEN GRAND STURDY 410 AC TWIN motor yacht for sale | De Valk Yacht Brokers

 

[Ferris]

We have one Linssen in our club, not sure what the model is but it is very nice and well made and the owner is very particular on what he has, it is single engined.

While not the one that has been mentioned on here this is one that was for sale and now sold LINSSEN GRAND STURDY 410 AC TWIN motor yacht for sale | De Valk Yacht Brokers
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Of note is the protection for both sets of sterngear. Superior to a twin engined Broom in this respect.

 

[SimonX]

I love Linssen Yachts
In March 2024 I had the pleasure to charter a brand new Linssen 45 Sedan (60 engine hours) for a pleasure trip for 3 weeks around the Netherlands.
( Linssen 45 SL Sedan - Femke )
Together with my family we had one of our best sailing trips along the chanels of the Netherlands and the Ijselmeer to visit Amsterdam.

The "Femke" was a brand new yacht from the well known Linssen brand. With two 110 PS engines, shaft drive, all modern nautical equipement and very easy to handle. The quality of the boat is outstanding: All technical equipement is reliable, modern nautical quality and the interior good and practical for daily use. The ship was very practical to handle and well equiped for 4 people. And in March 2024 we loved the excellent heating / aircon system ... as weather was not always nice.
From my experience with the 3 weeks of sailing an outstanding Linssen 45 I would recomend this brand to all owners. I can not speak about the usage of a Linssen for offshore or open sea travel - but I think she would also perform well in this waters.

That looks absolutely beautiful. We had a 7 day break in Netherlands last year on a much cheaper (LeBoat) boat and it was great fun apart from last two days when it rained a lot. We will be back no matter which brand of boat we buy.

 

[SimonX]

Linssen make some very nice boats and are much desired in both The Netherlands and Belgium. From the other Grand Sturdy 410AC I have seen all have had a single engine and bunk beds in the fore cabin. They are used on coastal waters too.

Twin engines in a inland waterway boat here is a bit unusual, it can make it very difficult to come alongside the canal banks to moor, they are quite shallow at the sides and the propellor will touch before you come alongside, also you are burning twice the diesel than you really need to.
Having a twin engined boat with the engines producing 145hp each, at in gear idle my boat does 8.2km/h with both engines, on 1 engine she does 7.8km/h, I can break the majority of the speed limits at 1000rpm, at 900rpm the boat does 15km/h and as she is semi displacement she will do around 31km/h or about 17knots.

The twin engine thing was born out of our initial thoughts of buying in the U.K. and doing 2-3-4 week trips into Europe as we had done with the Bayliner. So we wanted something that could cross the channel quickly and reliably. If we buy in Europe it’s not such an essential. We are supposed to be going to look at an Atlantic 42 shortly which has 2 x 370Hp engines which I really think is overkill.
Need to discuss further with Her Ladyship. She’s just home from hospital and rather tired.

 

[PaulRainbow]

The twin engine thing was born out of our initial thoughts of buying in the U.K. and doing 2-3-4 week trips into Europe as we had done with the Bayliner. So we wanted something that could cross the channel quickly and reliably. If we buy in Europe it’s not such an essential. We are supposed to be going to look at an Atlantic 42 shortly which has 2 x 370Hp engines which I really think is overkill.
Need to discuss further with Her Ladyship. She’s just home from hospital and rather tired.

Not going to be the best inland waterways boat.

 

[SimonX]

Not going to be the best inland waterways boat.

Yeah, really just want to get a feel for the boat. There seem to be a fair few in Netherlands with smaller /single engines.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Agree with Paul, not ideal for rivers with those two big engines. Ditto similarly equipped Brooms. I’d definitely want a single.

Lovely boats though.

 

[Greg2]

I would respectfully disagree

No question that large engines on inland waterways aren’t necessary and if inland use is all that is ever envisaged then a single engined displacement hull is more suitable but there are lots of twin engined sea boats running quite happily inland for many years. The oft cited issue is that bores will glaze but whilst the subject has been discussed many times on here over the years I don’t recall a real world example being cited and I have never come across it in well over twenty years of boating.

The issue of twin engines making it more difficult to get alongside banks in shallower water is real and we experienced it on a Thames trip on our Broom 41 but we found an easy workaround by using the outboard engine to do the first or last bit of manoeuvring close to the bank. The twin was sometimes a benefit as the outboard engine was further away from the bank than a single would have been and the subsequently fitted stern thruster resolved the issue completely.

Brooms were designed for sea passages and inland cruising in Europe and the Atlantic is of the same ilk so for what it is worth I wouldn’t write it off as an option but that is just my opinion
.

 

[Alicatt]

Our last boat Casper had a 13hp VP MD7A through a saildrive and that was protected by a skeg. on a good day you could get her up to 12km/h @ 3.1 l/h

Going by the engine output curves of the 145hp Perkins in my Ocean 37, at 1000rpm they are producing about 17hp each and guzzling fuel at the alarming rate of 2.7 l/h and that is less than what the MD7A used at the same speed.

I tend to use one engine at a time to make them work a bit harder and get the temperatures up a bit, it helps burn off the carbon and soot that will build up in the exhausts, sitting for an hour at idle getting the boat out of the home canal and on to the main canal and then giving the engines a good blast you get a good smoke screen for a few seconds then they clear and are fine and don't smoke again until I have to go slow on a speed restricted canal again.

With a previous owner in 1989 our Ocean 37 has been to Brixham and back from the Netherlands as a safety boat for a sailboat flotilla, that's a 600NM round trip.
Last year we did 400NM on the inland waterways in her, at an average of 12km/h that is a fair few hours

Both my wife and myself love the Ocean 37, but they are not perfect, it was the best compromise in what we wanted, yes we would love something newer, and we are discussing that at the moment, we are down to two boats that we like at the moment, a Broom 42CL or a Dale Nelson 38, I like the Nelson and my wife likes the Broom, but she does not like the location of the galley on either of them, so the discussions go on.

 

[ari]

You know that feeling when you're driving your crappy, diesel, underpowered car and you're stuck behind a 90 year old coming home from church doing 15 mph in a 50 zone, how you wish you had the power to overtake her, well I always think whether its cars or boats it's better to have more power and not use it, than have very little power and wish you sometimes had access to more. Your Linssen looks like its for the river rather than the swell of the ocean.

That's not how it works with full displacement boats.

If it has enough power to reach its maximum displacement speed (and it almost certainly will, it doesn't take much power to reach max displacement speed) then thats your lot.

You could put 10x the power into it, but you still won't be able to overtake that 90 year old, because the boat is physically incapable of going any faster than it would have anyway, due to physics.

 

[SimonX]

Our last boat Casper had a 13hp VP MD7A through a saildrive and that was protected by a skeg. on a good day you could get her up to 12km/h @ 3.1 l/h

Going by the engine output curves of the 145hp Perkins in my Ocean 37, at 1000rpm they are producing about 17hp each and guzzling fuel at the alarming rate of 2.7 l/h and that is less than what the MD7A used at the same speed.

I tend to use one engine at a time to make them work a bit harder and get the temperatures up a bit, it helps burn off the carbon and soot that will build up in the exhausts, sitting for an hour at idle getting the boat out of the home canal and on to the main canal and then giving the engines a good blast you get a good smoke screen for a few seconds then they clear and are fine and don't smoke again until I have to go slow on a speed restricted canal again.

With a previous owner in 1989 our Ocean 37 has been to Brixham and back from the Netherlands as a safety boat for a sailboat flotilla, that's a 600NM round trip.
Last year we did 400NM on the inland waterways in her, at an average of 12km/h that is a fair few hours

Both my wife and myself love the Ocean 37, but they are not perfect, it was the best compromise in what we wanted, yes we would love something newer, and we are discussing that at the moment, we are down to two boats that we like at the moment, a Broom 42CL or a Dale Nelson 38, I like the Nelson and my wife likes the Broom, but she does not like the location of the galley on either of them, so the discussions go on.

Her ladyship is browsing in her sickbed and found this which ticks many boxes and looks gorgeous https://www.rightboat.com/boats-for-sale/linssen/grand-sturdy-40-9/rb670943
It is a single car engine. It is also about £100k over our budget so unless BiL is contributing a lot more than he led me to believe, its a no go
She also found this: https://www.rightboat.com/boats-for-sale/westwood/a38/rb596264
Am I right in recalling someone saying Westwood is an Atlantic hull finished and outfitted in Enniskillen?

On the Broom, yes, my wife's favourite is still the Broom 42 CL. I'll have to look up the Dale Nelson.