With more than 6,000 kilometres of navigable waterways crisscrossing W Holland, a third of which sits below sea level, it’s hardly surprising that the Dutch have elevated the act of designing and building river boats to something of an art form. Among the nation’s leading exponents is Linssen Yachts, whose highly respected brand name graces the 70 or so meticulously fashioned boats constructed by the firm every year.
Founded by Jac Linssen in 1949, initially to salvage barges scuttled in Dutch canals by retreating German forces at the end of World War II, the business progressed into producing 9-16m steel-hulled vessels of its own design, built entirely in-house.
In 1976, Jac’s son Jos designed a boat named the St Jozef Vlettern, which was destined to form the basis of the Classic Sturdy range offered until the mid-1990s. At that point it was superseded by what became known as the ‘.9-series’, due to designations such as 29.9, 33.9 and 40.9.
Available in lengths of 32, 36 and 40 feet, around 400 Classic Sturdys were built in total. Of these, the majority were aft cabin models with a raised cockpit and a cabin at either end. The alternative was a single cabin sedan model. The word ‘Sturdy’, incidentally, refers to the hull form and has been used by Linssen across several of its model ranges – others include Grand Sturdy and Dutch Sturdy – and given their all-steel construction, the name seems entirely appropriate. In the case of the Classic Sturdy, the hull is a snub-bowed affair equipped with a fin keel for directional stability. For additional robustness, the propeller shaft is encapsulated within the keel, and the fin itself extends beneath the prop for protection before becoming the lower hinge point for the rudder.
IN BUILD 1976 - 2000 PRICE RANGE £40,000 - 105,000
SEE MORE mby.com/360ac
THAMES LINK
For this review, we visited Shepperton Marina on the River Thames to catch up with a 1994 vintage 36ft Classic Sturdy 360AC being offered by the on-site broker, Boat Showrooms, for £92,950. Its owners for the past eight years have been former yachtsman John Hoadley and his wife Linda. Their parting with the vessel is due to the passage of time or, as John puts it, “I want to give it up before it gives me up!” Their time with the boat, however, has been quite an adventure. In addition to covering most of the Thames, they crossed the Channel to cruise the French canals and rivers and ended up keeping the boat there for five years.
“My wife had this great idea to go to Paris,” exp
