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LM27 motor sailer

Brief details

Builder

LM Glasfiber AS, Denmark

The LM27 is a heavy long-keel double-ender, with a pilothouse offering a second internal steering position. Performance under sail is surprisingly good for this type of boat. Really good examples - even sometimes quite old ones - can fetch very high prices for a 27-footer, as there are few modern equivalents.

LOA

28' 4"

Sail area

408 sq ft main and genoa

LWL

23' 3"

Rig

sloop

Beam

9' 2"

Cabins

2

Draught

3' 1"

Berths

4/6

Displacement

10,913 lbs

Engine

normally a Bukh diesel

Ballast

3,968 lbs

BHP

usually 20, some fitted with up to 35 hp engines

Keel type

Long keel

The Danish LM27 has long been probably the world’s most successful small wheelhouse sailing cruiser, with over 1,500 built since the designs introduction in 1975. First built in Denmark, the moulds later came to the UK when LM ceased building yachts and started to manufacture blades for wind turbines.

The hull lines and robust construction owe much to the traditional Scandinavian “Colin Archer” sailing lifeboats, although the originals of these designs, long regarded by many as the epitome of seaworthiness, are rather larger.

For such a small motor-sailer, with bluff bow and long shallow keel, the sailing performance is remarkably good. When introduced 'Yachting World' reported that ".... she sails surprisingly fast”, and 'Yachting Monthly' said ".... Can she sail? Undoubtedly this one can, in a very satisfactory way”.

Around 1983/84 the LM27 was reworked into the LM28 - the boats looks similar on the water and have a very similar interior layout, but the LM28 hulls were slightly longer and beamier, and the long keel of the LM27 with shaft drive was replaced by a choice of a long fin or bilge keels with a Saildrive.

What is essentially still an LM28 was until around 2009-10 still available new (at a very substantial price) as the Scanyacht 290, built from the same hull and deck moulds, but stretched to 29 ft by the addition of a short bowsprit, and with minor changes to interior, rig and ballast.

The forecabin has a conventional vee-berth, with infill to make a double, and usually a folding concertina door

The heads has a marine WC with a pull-out washbasin above

Most LM27s have a fold-out two-section table that stows flat against the aft end of the cockpit well, under the tiller head