Steel Hoogaar Type Yacht

More functional than beautiful
Dory type hull
Hollow section leeboard

Botters, boiers and hoogaars are traditional shallow draught Dutch sailing vessels, perhaps 60’ in length, with a draught of under 3’. All of them have bluff bows, but boiers have rounded topsides and bottoms; botters have rounded topsides and flat bottoms meeting at a chine, and hoogaars generally have flat sections on the sides and bottom. Smaller pleasure yacht versions of these types are not uncommon in Holland and some of the more modern steel ones following the lines of hoogaars are not unlike dories. All of these boats carry leeboards which are usually made of wood and the less rounded ones have hollow section to provide lift to windward when they are deployed on the leeward side of the vessel.


Yesterday while walking along the riverside I was attracted to a steel hoogaar type yacht on the hard at Burnham-on-Crouch Yacht Marina. I liked the simplicity of her design. She had uncomplicated straight sides and a flat, rockered bottom joined at a single chine. Perhaps she was not beautiful, but she was so different to the normal fibreglass round bilge yachts at the marina, that I just had to have a closer look.