Knarr – 14m Kruiskamp Bakdekker 1400 (2005)

Full Description

Kruiskamp have been building steel motor yachts in Almelo since 1991, and the Bakdekker is their take on the classic Dutch canal cruiser: a low, purposeful steel hull with a proper enclosed wheelhouse and the kind of proportions that look right moored in a town centre. Knarr was built in 2005 and she has that sense of proportion in spades. She is fourteen metres overall on a 4.20 metre beam, draws just 1.20 metres and displaces 18 tonnes, with a hard-chine steel hull and steel superstructure. The number that defines her, though, is the air draft. With the mast lowered she clears just 2.95 metres, which opens up a remarkable amount of the European inland network, the low bridges and old town canals that bigger boats simply cannot reach. She is CE Category C, built for rivers, lakes, canals and sheltered coastal waters, and that is exactly where she belongs. Power comes from a single Perkins Sabre M135 of 135hp driving a four-bladed propeller through a ZF Hurth gearbox, with an electric bow thruster to make close-quarters work easy. Steering is hydraulic, with helm positions both inside and outside. Below, the layout is built for a couple who want to live aboard for weeks at a time. An owner's cabin with a French bed and its own bathroom and shower, a saloon with a chart table, and a dinette that converts into a further double, giving four berths in all. The domestic fit-out is genuinely full: a Samsung Smart Oven, Bosch fridge and separate freezer, a Bosch washing machine, a 40 litre boiler and Kabola central heating, with double glazing throughout. She is set up to stay away from the marina too, with a Northern Lights 7kW generator, a pair of solar panels, an inverter, an AIS transponder and 1,000 litres of fresh water. She was fully repainted in 2017, had new antifouling in 2022 and new Rolls AGM batteries the same year. She lies at the sales office in the Netherlands.