Contest 42CSReview & Buyer’s Guide: The Dutch Luxury Cruiser Explained
What you’d actually do with her
This is a luxury cruising yacht for coastal seas and the Mediterranean, built to order: the yard assembles the saloon layout, the cockpit and the deck hardware from dozens of configurations chosen by each owner. Typical use: a day out along the coast, a weekend with a night at anchor, and in summer a week or a holiday of passages between islands, or a full season in the Med or the Baltic. She sails faster than most comfort cruisers of her size, so daily runs are longer and the weather window wider, and she can race at club level without modification. She is dense with technology: powered winches and furlers let a couple handle her, or one experienced person alone, though every system needs servicing and budget. She is certified for ocean work, but the documented life of these boats is the coast and the short seas: multi-month ocean routes are not a genre this model has proven in practice.
The boat they sat in for six months
Before the first hull was built, the yard in Medemblik knocked together a full-size plywood cockpit. And spent half a year sitting in it: designers, salesmen, passing visitors. They moved from seat to seat, reached for imaginary winches, argued over where the helmsman’s knee lands. Only then did the drawings go to production.
That way of making boats belongs to another era. Contest Yachts has been building sailing yachts since 1959, under the third generation of one family, in a small town on the IJsselmeer, and it is in no hurry: two or three hulls of this model a year. The 42CS appeared in 2013 as the yard’s first aft-cockpit boat in many years, and by January 2014 she held the European Yacht of the Year title in the Luxury Cruiser class, beating rivals fifteen feet longer.
The jury put it better than any brochure: the feel of a sixty-footer in a hull a small crew can manage. The owner of the British test boat makes the same point in biography form. He came down to the 42CS from a 49ft Oyster, wanting nothing over 45ft for ease of handling, but refusing to give up an inch of comfort.
This medal has a reverse side, and for a used-boat buyer it matters more than the medal itself. The boats are few, they are expensive, and their owners do not write on forums. The 42CS has almost no public history of faults. Not because there are none, but because this market keeps quiet. This dossier is assembled from sea trials, yard documentation and the broker biographies of individual hulls; its honest job is to arm you before the survey, not to replace it.
The family that started with dinghies
Ed Conijn founded the yard in 1959, and its first product was not a yacht but a racing dinghy: the Flying Dutchman, of which it built more than six hundred. Those dinghies financed the move into cruising yachts under the Conyplex name. Today the company is run by the founder’s grandson, Arjen Conijn, and production still stands in Medemblik.
The 42CS was drawn not by a celebrity office but by the German designer Georg Nissen, a man of the old school with long ties to the yard. The newer models in the range (49CS, 50CS, 55CS) were commissioned from judel/vrolijk, which is why sources routinely misattribute the 42CS. For a buyer this is not trivia: if a broker’s listing names judel/vrolijk as the designer, treat the rest of the specification with suspicion too.
Hull number one the yard deliberately built overloaded with options, carbon rig and racing kit included, and kept as its own demonstrator.
Contest owners gather once a year for the yard’s own regatta, the Contest Cup. In 2025 the over-40ft class, raced in a stiff breeze, was won by a 42CS, the hull Beluga 2. And at the Caribbean Heineken Regatta, in what the yard’s own report called boisterous wind and swell, the man aboard the 42CS Beluga was Arjen Conijn himself. A yard whose director personally races a production boat in fresh weather is a rarity.
What kind of boat is this — if you’re seeing her for the first time
The Contest 42CS is a 12.85-metre sailing yacht from the Netherlands, built around a crew of two. Three things separate her from anything in a charter catalogue.
She is assembled around her buyer. Forty-five interior layouts, five cockpit variants, three deck versions: short-handed, performance cruising, cruiser-racing. Two identical 42CSs barely exist, and this is the first thing to understand before buying used: you are not buying “the model,” you are buying one specific owner’s configuration. Carbon or aluminium mast, in-mast or in-boom mainsail furling, winch layout: all of it individual.
She is built like an expensive object, not a production run. Hull and deck are a sandwich formed by vacuum infusion in a single shot: E-glass, vinylester resin, an end-grain balsa core. Bulkheads are laminated to hull and deck, so the structure works as one piece. Below sits a steel fin with a lead bulb: forty-two per cent of the boat’s weight lives in the ballast, an unusually high figure for a cruiser, and the reason she carries her sail with such confidence. Construction is Lloyds certified.
She is luxurious in the literal, technical sense. Teak covers the whole deck, bow to bathing platform, vacuum bonded without a single screw. Powered winches, powered furlers, hydraulics, a generator, a single digital bus running the ship’s electrics. This is a yacht where everything happens at the push of a button, with all that implies for an owner whose every button will one day need service.
Living with her: the voices are testers’, because the owners stay silent
A disclaimer you will not find in our other dossiers: this section is built from magazine sea trials, not from owners’ forum confessions. Owners of the 42CS barely exist in the public record. Keep the correction in mind: a test lasts a week, not a season.
Under sail she holds 6.2 to 6.4 knots hard on the wind in moderate breeze and reaches 7 as it builds; in light air, an honest 4 knots of boatspeed from 5 knots of wind, respectable for an 11-tonne cruiser wearing full teak.
“Her stiff construction belies her modest 11 tonne displacement (40 per cent in the keel)… Easy to sail and easy to trim, she is a luxury family cruiser that excels under sail.”
The same tester, as the breeze climbed into double figures: “I started to feel a little weatherhelm … not quite as easy to keep in a groove.”
The helm is its own subject:
“The steering was firm and responsive, and gave good feedback, but it just wasn’t finger light – possibly due to having the second wheel to turn.”
And his observation under load: close-hauled in more than 20 knots apparent, “the helm just gets heavier and she heels more.” The test version had no mainsheet traveller, so depowering means easing the sheet from a winch, slower than dropping a car down a track.
Daily life exposes a design trade. For the sake of clean topsides there are no opening ports in the hull sides. Cross-ventilation cannot be achieved, and for warm-water berths the testers recommend the air-conditioning option outright. The forecabin is on the dark side, lit by a single small hatch over the foot of the berth. And the Mastervolt touch panel that runs the ship’s electrics is hard to read in direct sunlight.
Under power: 6.5 knots at cruising revs, 7.5 flat out, a turn inside her own length, a retracting bow thruster. Quiet, too: 68 decibels at cruise.
The balsa debate: two schools of boatbuilding
Every boat in the canon has an organ the community argues over. On the 42CS it is the core of the hull sandwich: end-grain balsa, which is to say wood. And since the owners stay silent, the argument here is conducted not by them but by schools of yacht construction.
The yard’s position, and its supporters’: balsa in a vacuum infusion means stiffness, light weight and half a century of proven practice. Germany’s YACHT magazine, testing the boat, lists the torsion-resistant vacuum-injected balsa hull among the design’s virtues. The yard claims a stability range beyond 130 degrees for the range, and RCD Category A.
The sceptics’ position, in the words of the Interesting Sailboats analyst comparing Contest and Hallberg-Rassy construction:
“The only thing I prefer about the HR building is the PVC core.”
Telling detail: on everything else, the infusion, vinylester through all laminate layers, sandwich bulkheads, the same analyst prefers the Contest way.
The case against balsa is the industry’s standard one: wood that takes in water through a leaking fitting rots, foam does not. The yard’s answer is equally standard and backed by process: infusion saturates the balsa with resin, the teak is bonded without through-fasteners, and the end-grain structure limits moisture migration.
The honest takeaway for a buyer: there is no publicly documented case of a wet core on a 42CS, but there is no public statistics of any kind either. So the question is settled not in debate but with a moisture meter. Readings across deck and hull, concentrated around every fitting, are a mandatory part of the survey, and one surveyor’s report with numbers outweighs any forum thread.
Buying a used Contest 42CS: problems and what to check
From here on, this dossier switches to survey mode.
Papers first, boat second
The reference books are muddled on this model, so verify the basics: design by Georg Nissen, series built since 2013. The popular database sailboatdata lists the neighbouring 45CS’s figures under the 42CS name (13.7 m, 13,500 kg, 75 hp), so check any hull’s specification against yard documentation, never against aggregators. RCD category is A, with a STIX of 48.0; the “category B” that circulates online is an error. A mismatch between build year and registration year (as with the hull Date, listed as 2018 and 2019 by different brokers) is normal, but insist on the CIN/HIN.
Configuration sets the price
Establish before you travel: carbon or aluminium mast; in-mast or in-boom furling; deck version (short-handed, performance, racing); standard 2.20 m keel or the shoal draft near 1.80 m; whether the optional 88-litre fuel tank supplements the base 226 litres.
The moisture meter and the balsa
The survey’s headline item (see the debate above): readings across deck and hull, aimed at every fitting, stanchion base and piece of deck hardware. Localised moisture at one fitting is a bargaining and repair matter. Widespread deck moisture is grounds to walk away, or to demand a discount sized to a teak replacement.
The teak
Bonded without screws, which removes the classic fastener leaks, but not ageing itself: check the seams, the remaining thickness, wear around hardware. Replacing a full teak deck on a boat of this class runs to five figures in euros, and the deck’s condition is your main lever at the table.
The systems audit: by list, under load
Powered main and genoa furlers: work them under sail, not at the dock. Hydraulics (Navtec backstay, vang): hose age, any weep or stain. The WhisperPower generator: hours and service record. The Mastervolt bus: faults, module replacements, parts availability. No failure here is small money; each is a four-figure invoice.
The engine
Yanmar 4JH5 (54 hp) on 2013–2019 hulls, the 4JH57 (57 hp) later; saildrive SD60 in both cases, with its diaphragm, oil and anode schedule. Ask specifically for the saildrive’s service history.
The yard’s service book
Few boats exist, and many were maintained at Medemblik Yacht Service, the yard’s own arm. A complete factory history is a real part of the price; its absence is an argument for a discount and an independent survey.
Contest 42CS price and market: almost no depreciation
The used market snapshot: two or three hulls for sale worldwide at any one time. Price anchors for 2014–2018 boats run from €469,000 to €595,000, with some offered only on request. For calibration: a new boat cost €548,000 including VAT in 2015 and passed the million mark by 2025. Few were built. Working from hull numbers in broker listings, the rate is two or three a year, around fifteen hulls by 2019, with the series still in production.
The arithmetic is stark. A 2018 hull is asked at €595,000, above the price of a new boat in 2015. Depreciation on this model barely exists; the market is held up by scarcity and by the yard’s own brokerage, through which hulls change hands before wide publicity.
The practical conclusion: as with other magnet boats in this canon, finding a 42CS is not a matter of monitoring listings but of waiting. Knowing the boat before the deal is the only edge a buyer can secure in advance.
Market snapshot: August 2026. This section is updated with each revision.
Contest 42CS vs Hallberg-Rassy, X-Yachts and Arcona: what buyers actually compare
Hallberg-Rassy 412 is the principal rival in spirit: the same league of quality, the same Scandinavian-Germanic school, comparable displacement. The fork in the road is the cockpit. The Swede’s is central, the Dutchwoman’s aft. HR brings ocean reputation and a protected helm; Contest answers with ballast ratio, sail power and the depth of build customisation. Forums argue in earnest over which of the two costs more.
X-Yachts Xc 42 is the Danish answer: comparable length, an even higher ballast ratio, the marque’s signature precision at the helm. Less luxury and individualisation, more instrument. We take the Xc family apart in our Xc 45 dossier.
Hallberg-Rassy 40C is the same Swedish yard’s modern move: twin rudders, a fuller stern, more volume on less ballast. For buyers who value platform novelty over classical proportion.
Arcona 435 is the Swedish sporting alternative: two tonnes lighter on a longer hull, a foam core, a European title in the performance class. Less comfort and less butler-on-board, considerably more adrenaline.
The choice formula: maximum luxury and individuality in an aft cockpit, Contest; ocean tradition and a centre cockpit, Hallberg-Rassy; precision and sport, X-Yachts and Arcona.
Open questions
This dossier doesn’t pretend to omniscience. Owner testimony about life with the boat, beyond tests and regattas, does not exist in the public record; that is the biggest hole, and only interviews will close it. The exact year of the change from the 54 hp to the 57 hp Yanmar is not fixed by any single document. The yard does not publish a total build count. And no confirmed ocean crossings or ARC entries by a 42CS have been found: every “bluewater” claim so far rests on the certificate, not on the biographies of actual hulls. Owners’ answers will appear in the next revision.
Contest 42CS specifications (factory, base series)
| Length overall | 12.85 m |
| Waterline length | 11.76 m |
| Beam | 4.15 m |
| Draft (standard / shoal) | 2.20 / approx. 1.80 m |
| Displacement (lightship) | 11,000 kg |
| Ballast | 4,600 kg, lead bulb (B/D 42%) |
| Sail area (upwind) | approx. 104 m² (main 57 + genoa 108% 47) |
| Mast above waterline | 22.09 m |
| Engine | Yanmar 4JH5 54 hp (2013–2019) / 4JH57 57 hp; saildrive SD60 |
| Fuel / water | 226 (+88 option) / 381 L |
| Construction | E-glass/vinylester sandwich, vacuum infusion, end-grain balsa core; Lloyds |
| RCD | A (STIX 48.0) |
| Design | Georg Nissen |
| Series | since 2013; approx. 2–3 hulls per year |
FAQ
How much does a used Contest 42CS cost?
Roughly €470,000 to €595,000 for 2014–2018 hulls. Two or three are for sale worldwide at any moment, some only on request through the yard’s brokerage. A new boat now costs over a million euros, so depreciation is minimal.
What are the known problems of the Contest 42CS?
There is no public defect record, because owners of this model do not write on forums. The survey priorities are: moisture in the balsa core around deck fittings, the condition of the full teak deck, the dense systems (powered furlers, hydraulics, generator, Mastervolt bus), and the saildrive.
Is the Contest 42CS suitable for ocean crossings?
She is certified RCD Category A (STIX 48.0), but no confirmed ocean crossings or ARC entries by this model have been found. The documented practice is the North Sea, the Baltic, the Mediterranean and regattas.
Who designed the Contest 42CS?
Georg Nissen. The series has been built since 2013 and won European Yacht of the Year 2014 in the Luxury Cruiser class. The newer 49CS/50CS/55CS were designed by judel/vrolijk, which is the source of frequent misattribution.
Contest 42CS or Hallberg-Rassy?
Contest: aft cockpit, higher ballast ratio, deep build customisation. Hallberg-Rassy (412/40C): centre cockpit and ocean reputation. The quality league is the same; the choice is philosophy, not class.
Method: this dossier was assembled from Contest Yachts’ own documentation (brochures, specifications), sea trials by Yachting World, Yachting Monthly, YACHT.de, Sail Magazine, YachtingNews and Sailing Magazine, the analysis at Interesting Sailboats, broker biographies of individual hulls (Contest Brokerage, De Valk, Diamond Yachts, YachtFocus) and brokerage archives 2013–2026. No owner testimony on this model exists in the public record; we say so in the text rather than paper over it. Where sources disagree, we either resolved the conflict with primary data (the specification follows yard documents) or left it honestly open. Owner interviews are underway; their testimony will join the next revision.