“A Super Sturdy and Beautifully Finished Dutch Steel Cruiser”
Credits: Nick Burnham
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT
This is a Linssen Grand Sturdy 35 Sedan. They’re Dutch-built, and it’s all steel, so a really proper solid motorboat, very, very popular for inland waters. And you can see actually some of the practical details, look at the thickness of these rubber D sections that go around the bathing platform about the sides and also around the whole boat. Because, of course, on the rivers, they do tend to take sometimes a little bit of punishment, so that is very, very useful along with the fact that it’s got some serious steel construction.
“This boat is all steel, with very thick D-rubbers around the entire boat, making it a truly proper solid motorboat.”
EXTERIOR
Now we’ve got the canopies on at the minute because the weather has been absolutely dreadful here at the boat show. So I’m going to walk you on the outside from here [port side]. Obviously, normally you can unzip this [port canopy] and you can just wander out onto the side, so it’s going be easier just to stroll up this way. We’ve got side boarding ladders here [port]. These actually swing down, so you can walk up onto the side. And, of course, when that’s down, it’s open there.
And then we can come right on round to the bow. We’ve got the mast there, which will fold down to reduce air-draft. Very important, obviously, on the rivers that you can keep the height down as low as possible. And the anchor winch there [bow]. That’s what she looks like from the outside.
INTERIOR
I’m going to take you in now and show you how she looks from the inside. So we’ll step on here [swim platform]. The interesting thing is they do two versions on the same hull. I’m going to show you this here [brochure]. So we are on the Grand Sturdy 35 Sedan, which, as you can see, is like a flat top here. And you can see now why that [mast] needs to reduce in height because it is quite a lot higher than this [top]. But they do a aft-cabin version, and the big difference with the aft-cabin is that rather than having a cockpit that’s sunk into the boat as this is, on the same level as the saloon, on this one, you come up some steps from the saloon, and there’s an aft-deck. And what that means is it gives you space for another double cabin in the back of the boat. This [Grand Sturdy 35 Sedan] is the one that we’re looking at, cockpit at the back, and then this is what we’re about to see inside. So yeah, if you wanted to have the two cabins there [aft], you can certainly do it.
These are the zip sections that come up that give you access onto the side deck [port side]. You can see it on this side [starboard side] as well. So you zip those up, roll it up, and that’s your way forward. Big overhang on this, which means that your canopies drop pretty much vertically, so you don’t need to have any framework for those, which is great.
If we head on in here [saloon], then this is just a really big, comfortable social space. And in fact, what they’ve done is they put a nice desk here [port]. Brilliant place to work from home, isn’t it? That’d be fantastic! But actually, you can lift that [desk], and there’s a TV underneath of it, so if you want to watch a bit of telly, you can do that.
Engines are under the floor, I will show you that in a moment. Gas cooking on this one, so we’ve got the gas oven and the gas hob up here [next to the desk]. Fridge is in here [below the gas hob], but I mustn’t open the fridge door, so we’ll gloss over that. I’m sure you know what a fridge looks like on the inside. And then you’ve got the sink here [next to the gas hob]. This is the control panel [next to the sink], so they put all the switch gear on here like heating, lighting, all that kind of stuff, all switched from there.
And then the helm is over here [starboard]. Big upright wheel, you’ve got the bow and stern thruster controls, it’s very important when you’re manoeuvring. And then again, similar deal here with the switch panel, and it’s showing you as well the water level, fuel level, that kind of stuff on there, engine control, and so forth.
And the other thing to mention while we’re here is that this settee here [behind the helm station] is a settee bed, so this will make into a double bed. If you want extra sleeping, you can have it. And then finally, the other thing we’ve got here is this massive opening roof section. Look at this, so you can really let the light and the air in. And when you want that shut, you touch the button and voila! And what I find really interesting about this is there’s a blind that come across here too, a night blind like that, but why? [Nick laughs]. There’s a bug screen as well and that I can see the point of because obviously when you’ve got that open, you can have the air coming through and keep the bugs out. I’m just not quite sure where you’d want the night screen. I’m sure, there’s a really good reason. Maybe you can get this with glass panels in. That would seem to make sense, wouldn’t it? Let’s press on a bit further.
“They have an aft-cabin version, where instead of a sunken cockpit like this one, it features an aft-deck accessed by steps from the saloon on the same level.”
If we come down here [forward cabin], we’ve got a single cabin on this one, as we mentioned before, so that’s in here. It’s got a nice sized central double bed. It’s just nice and simple everywhere, isn’t it? There’s nothing complicated about this. It’s just a nice proper little motorboat.
Hatch up above, so you’ve got a way out in emergency, more storage over here [starboard]. And then they split off the heads and the shower. So the shower is in here [next to the starboard storage], really nice size. Look at that, that’s fantastic! So that is just for this cabin, of course, anybody can come in and use it, but what I mean is there’s only one door from here on this one. On the other side [port], this is the heads, and they put a door here as well because, of course, that is also a day heads. People during the day, might be having a party on the boat, and you want people to come better use the heads without coming through your cabin. That’s how you can do it. And then that [second door] one makes it ensuite at night. Again, decent size. They’ve not tried to cram too much in. Everything is nicely proportioned. Very good!
Okay, let’s come back out of here. Let’s have a look in here [storage]. Oh, hang on, there’s a hanging locker in there and the Fusion HiFi is there [next to the storage]. We’ve got the Webasto central heating system in here [above the hanging locker] as well, good!
ENGINE ACCESS
Engine then is under the floor [saloon deck], as I mentioned. And it is a Volvo Penta D2. Again, it couldn’t get much simpler, could it? You’ve got the fuel tank there, just ahead of it. You can see the ribs of the steel construction on the floor on either side. So it’s a D2, with 75 horsepower. It’s giving the boat about 7.5 knots flat out. As I say, it’s really designed for inland and estuary use. I guess you could take it out and use it coastal, but the speed and the performance is absolutely optimal for rivers and so forth. In fact, if you’re doing 6 knots, it’s using just 5L an hour. So that’s giving you about 260 miles of range.
“She has a Volvo Penta D2, which gives about 7.5 knots flat out.”
Water strainer is here, little fuel filter over there, and it’s a conventional shaft drive. There we go, you can see it disappearing down the back, and in fact, that’s encapsulated by the keel all the way back. Batteries and battery switches are over here as well. Fantastic!
And in fact, while we’re under the floor, I should point out that there is a huge storage area up here [next to the engine access]. So if you want to go and spend some time, ’cause what people do with these, they kind of retire and buy a boat like this and then head off through the inland waterways of Europe, and this sort of boat is ideal for that. So there’s a massive storage void down here, full of brochures because we’re at a boat show.
Worth pointing out, in fact, while we’re here, that table in the cockpit is freestanding. So that was in here [saloon], I moved it out so that we can open this engine hatch here. So again, you just put it wherever you want to use it really. And then if we come back here [cockpit], we will discover another big storage void down there [hatch under the cockpit decks]. It is a very practical boat, isn’t it?
SUMMARY
And that, my friends, is about the size of that. I don’t think there’s much else to point out. Let’s head back out, let’s stand over here. Let’s say a huge thanks to Boat Showrooms. They’ve organised this tour. They’re the dealers for these in the UK. And huge thanks, as ever, to you all for watching. Let me know what you think of that fine ship, and we’ll catch you on another one of these real soon. Take care. Bye-bye!
