Bestevaer sailboats: a Dykstra design, built by KM Yachtbuilders
Bestevaer is not an independent boatbuilder. It is a design series created by naval architect Gerard Dijkstra of Dykstra Naval Architects and built by KM Yachtbuilders, a separate Dutch aluminium yard — two companies, each with a distinct role, behind one line of yachts. Dykstra Naval Architects draws the boats; KM Yachtbuilders builds them. Neither company trades under the Bestevaer name alone, and understanding the line means keeping their roles apart rather than treating Bestevaer as a manufacturer in its own right.
Origins and ownership
The name predates the production boats. Gerard Dijkstra designed a single-handed racer called Bestevaer for himself in 1976, and the yachts that followed took their name from it. By his own account, he had spent decades designing yachts for others and sailing the world's seas before turning to a boat of his own: a safe, comfortable, good-looking yacht built for unrestricted, short-handed sailing.
That ambition produced Bestevaer II, the first of the production Bestevaer sailing yachts. KM Yachtbuilders' own listing for the boat describes it as designed by Dijkstra as his personal yacht, for short-handed, long-distance voyaging in cold climates, combining his racing background, his polar sailing experience, and his naval design work. Set against the 1976 original, Bestevaer II is a fast-cruising development — less extreme, with more beam and less draft — while retaining many of the earlier boat's characteristics, the same listing says. Gerard and Loon Dykstra have cruised widely aboard their own Bestevaer 2, mostly in cold climates, according to Dykstra Naval Architects' company profile: the designer sailing the boat he designed for himself.
KM Yachtbuilders, the yard that builds the line, was founded in 1998. Dykstra Naval Architects began working on the Bestevaer series with that yard — referred to in a Doyle Sails/Tide Magazine profile of the firm as the Dutch boatbuilder K&M — the start of the collaboration that has produced every Bestevaer since.
The designers
Dykstra Naval Architects was founded in 1969 by Gerry Dykstra, who had served on Conny van Rietschoten's Whitbread Round the World Race-winning yacht Flyer and continued working as a professional sailor until 1980, per the firm's own company profile. Thys Nikkels joined in 1991 as the firm's first full-time employee and became a partner in 2000; the firm's own history dates his move to CEO and owner to 2004, while a Doyle Sails/Tide Magazine profile of the firm puts it a year earlier, in 2003. Edwin Luijf, at Dykstra Naval Architects since 2001, is responsible for the Bestevaer and Bestewind lines.
Construction through the eras
KM Yachtbuilders is a Dutch aluminium yard employing 65 specialists, and it carries out every construction discipline in-house — hull, engineering, technology, and interior. Most of what it builds is fully custom, with the Bestevaer line as its semi-custom range. The Bestevaer 53 ST built on that approach in aluminium throughout — hull, pilot house, superstructure, and rudder, per Bestevaer's own model description — with the rudder stock and engine set above the waterline in a watertight compartment, a fixed dodger and pilot house sheltering the cockpit, and two watertight bulkheads dividing the hull into three watertight compartments (an additional masthead bulkhead is available for extra security). Buyers choose between a fixed keel and a centreboard.
The Bestevaer 36 pushed the build toward sustainability: KM Yachtbuilders built it with 60 percent recycled aluminium and recycled sails, insulated it with cork and mineral wool, and used no paint system, according to the yard's own account. Yachting Monthly's first look at the boat put the recycled-aluminium figure at 70 percent and noted recycled insulation as well, while Yachting World's review described it as retaining the watertight fore and aft bulkheads and thick bottom plating of the larger Bestevaers.
Lines and generations
The Pure series, introduced in 2016, is a semi-custom line derived from Bestevaer II and offered as a 45, 49, or 53 footer; the 45 Pure was nominated for the Sailing Yacht of the Year Award, per Bestevaer's own account. A first Bestevaer 49 launched in 2009, after several larger Bestevaers had already been built. The largest one-off custom Bestevaer is the 72-foot Symbiose.
The Bestevaer 36 S/Y, launched in 2023, was the second yacht KM Yachtbuilders built for Dijkstra personally. KM and Dykstra Naval Architects set a joint goal for it to be the smallest and most sustainable Bestevaer built, and KM's Eeuwe Kooi called it the sum of 25 years of pioneering construction at the yard; it won the European Yacht of the Year 2024 award in the "Special Mentioning Sustainability" category.
The line also includes a departure from sail: the Bestevaer 53 M/Y, launched in 2020, is a motor yacht rather than a sailing yacht, nominated for the European Powerboat of the Year Award.
Who Bestevaer is for
Bestevaer suits sailors drawn to an aluminium, pilothouse-equipped cruiser built for cold-climate, long-distance voyaging — a category the line's own designer has sailed himself, in a boat he built for his own use before it became a commercial range. The range spans full one-off custom commissions, a semi-custom production series, and, with the 36, a build aimed squarely at more sustainable construction, all from a single design-and-build pairing rather than a conventional single-company marque.
