Linjett sailboats: one Swedish yard's own brand, still run by the family that built it
Linjett is not a company in its own right — it is the sailboat line a single Swedish family yard, Rosättra Båtvarv, has built since 1973. The distinction matters: Rosättra predates Linjett by 87 years, has stayed under family ownership since 1948, and today builds a second, separate brand alongside it. Every Linjett design has come from inside that same yard, first from one brother, then another, and only recently — after nearly five decades — from an outside designer at all.
Origins and ownership
Rosättra Båtvarv traces to 1886, when boatbuilder Erik Jansson founded it on the Rosättra Farm site on Vätö, an island a few miles north of Norrtälje, after the nearby Bogesund's yard closed. The Jansson family ran it for decades — in 1906 NK of Stockholm began ordering sailboats from Rosättra, and the yard delivered about 50 day cruisers that year — until 1924, when Bertil Jansson bought out his father Erik to become sole owner.
Bertil had no children to succeed him, so in 1948 he called on Fritjof Gustafsson, who had long worked on and off at the yard, to take it over — the start of Gustafsson family ownership that continues today. Rosättra incorporated in 1961, with two of Fritjof's sons, Jan and Ola, becoming part owners; when Fritjof fell ill with Asian Flu in 1967, his sons ran the yard until he recovered. Under that second generation — Mats, Jan and Ola — Rosättra moved from wooden boats to fiberglass starting in 1968, closing out the wooden era with the 70th Laurin Koster, launched in August 1969.
It was against that backdrop that Jan Gustafsson, in 1973, took the initiative to design Rosättra's first boat built for both cruising and racing under its own name — the Linjett 30, and the birth of the Linjett brand. A 2025 feature on the yard credits Mats Gustafsson with founding Linjett Yachts in 1970, boats delivered from 1973; Rosättra's own history, by contrast, credits Jan as the one who initiated that first design in 1973 and calls him its "designer and builder." The weight of the yard's own record — design credit that follows Jan on the 30, then explicitly passes to Mats as his successor — favors Jan as the founding designer-builder, with Mats the long-tenured designer who came after him.
Ownership split again around 2003: Ola sold his share, and Jan took over a separate business, Servicevarvet AB, with his own sons. Mats continued Rosättra Båtvarv AB and Linjett production with his sons Daniel, Kristoffer and Markus, and in 2005 stepped down as CEO in Markus's favor — the third generation of Gustafssons to lead the yard's management.
The designers
Jan Gustafsson designed and built the Linjett 30, then won the 1974 Åland Sea Race sailing it; 112 were built. Mats Gustafsson took over as designer with the Linjett 32 in 1978, cutting apart his first hull plug and lengthening it by 22 centimetres after bath-testing showed it carried too much sail for its waterline. Mats remained the yard's designer for decades afterward, credited on models from the 32 through at least the Linjett 43 in 2016.
Outside design help came only once, and recently: Oscar Södergren, an independent designer and the son of veteran Swedish yacht designer Håkan Södergren, joined Mats as co-designer on the Linjett 39, first presented in March 2020 — the first Linjett built with input from outside the family. In a May 2025 interview, Markus Gustafsson, by then head of design and development, said Linjett boats "have always been designed by the family" and that the yard does not delegate its design process to outsiders, though its in-house team is willing to work with selected external specialists — Oscar Södergren's role on the 39 the clearest example.
Construction through the eras
Rosättra manages design, plastic work, carpentry, production, sales and service entirely in-house. That reach grew in 2004, when the yard brought fiberglass hull and deck production in-house after previously using an outside subcontractor. The yard has also taken occasional work beyond its own line: a custom-built Swede 41, begun in 2018 in collaboration with Classic Swedish Yachts, was its first special commission since the late 1960s. The following year, 2019, Rosättra was commissioned to build the Shogun 50, a carbon-fiber performance yacht designed by Håkan and Oscar Södergren, launching Shogun Yachts as a second brand built alongside Linjett at the same yard.
Lines and generations
The Linjett 32, introduced in 1978, remains the yard's best-selling model at 263 boats over a 14-year run — a record no later Linjett has matched. Its win at Båtnytt magazine's 1980 One-of-a-Kind Regatta, beating 14 other manufacturers, pushed demand past what Rosättra could build even at 25 boats a year. The Linjett 35 followed, inaugurated by Mats Gustafsson's mother, Göta, in May 1988 and built for 17 years; its "Ancilla," skippered by Mats with his sons as crew, won the Gotland Runt race in both 1990 and 1993. The Linjett 33, developed starting in 1993, ran for 16 years and 181 boats, and gave Mats another Gotland Runt win in 1998, the year five other Linjetts also placed in the top ten. The Linjett 37 replaced the 35 in 2007, designed for doublehanded sailing in keeping with the yard's practice of a new model roughly every five years, and the Linjett 34 replaced the 33 in 2011 as the first Linjett with an openable stern, a Mats Gustafsson design built in collaboration with his son Markus. The Linjett 43, introduced in 2016 and described as the yard's largest and most advanced design to date, was named Sailboat of the Year in the offshore cruiser class at the Gothenburg Boat Show, citing a retractable keel able to withstand a grounding. The Linjett 39, first presented in March 2020, followed as the range's newest model and its first collaboration between Mats Gustafsson and Oscar Södergren.
Who Linjett is for
A Linjett suits buyers drawn to a boat built entirely by one Swedish family yard rather than assembled from bought-in parts, and to the continuity that comes with it — the same yard that hand-built the 1973 original designed, laminated and finished every Linjett that followed it too. It also suits buyers who value a close-knit ownership community: the Linjett Owners' Club traces to an owners' championship first run in 1974 and, per a 2025 count, spanned roughly 600 members and 450 boats.
