Are Swedish Yachts as good as they say?

I bought my 1996 HR 36 in Palma in November 2001,

Her original owner was German and I paid the equivalent of £92k in DM.

I had three wonderful years sailing in the Med. Apart from routine maintenance the only chore I had was using coldweld to seal a leaking S/S water tank.

I sold her to Brits in Spain for £112k. They, rightly, believed they got a bargain.

Draw your own conclusions but, if I had to have another plastic boat, I would have a Swedish one tomorrow.
 
My last 2 boats I've owned from new. The last one was a Jeanneau 31, which gave me 13 years of totally trouble free sailing. She was well used and sailed as well as I expected. My present boat is in her 7th season, a Swedish built Maxi 1100. I've already had osmosis, my gel coat is fading badly, the engine installation was crap, and a few bits of the joinery have come away, albeit minor bits of trim. Plus sides are the woody interior feels luxurious when relaxing in the cabin, she's handsome and sails like a witch. In terms of difference in quality I'm not sure the price difference is justified to the extent that it is. I'm sure part of the difference is due to the higher labour costs in Sweden. Also Swedish boats are more labour intensive, for better or for worse. To try and answer your question, they are probably a bit more reliable in the long term, but not by as much as people think. Having said that I'd kill for a sail in the new HR372.
 
While all that is true, it's not actually why I chose my boat. I actually chose it because it had the fewest features wrong with it, which sounds a bit negative, but is derived from HR's evolutionary approach to design. Their experience means there are fewer of those things that can be very trying when a boat is lived in, as opposed to cruised for a week or two - too little space here, a corner sticking out, a galley that is dysfunctional, lack of sea-berths, lack of ventilation, or a cockpit that I can't make myself comfortable in at sea.

In spite of this, there are one or two ludicrous bits of design in mine, such as the inlet seacock to the heads being at the back of the engine. This is more than offset by having the boat cope with a big sea without a creak, and feeling the lead keel carving through the water in a balanced boat.
 
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Then how come there are three Swedish boats very local to me that have had osmosis problems in 5-10yrs only from new? One HR, one Nauticat and one Maxi.


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I can't say, but it's the first osmosis story about HR I've heard.

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...compared to the 42s on the chunky HR 395 in the next berth.

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I don't want to start a pissing contest, but there is no such thing as a HR395. The HR39 has size 54 genoa winches and the HR40 has size 50 winches.


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Smaller ones anyway will not wear out faster just be harder work to use


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If you believe that then we will never agree /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif


If you read my response I've never said HR and alike are better value for money. I actually said the opposite. It's just that I like them more. To me they feel more like a 'proper yacht'. It's all about perceived value.

Arno
 
The ultimate price of a boat is the difference between what you pay for her and what price you sell her for. That really makes HR and other quality boats a lot more inexpensive than you might think.

I have owned a 35 foot HR and when the time came to sell her, it was a sheer delight to discover how much they are in demand. No problem to sell.

Compare that with some boats I notice, that are on the market for years, slowly eating up mooring fees and degrading as they stand.

For this reason I would always buy quality if I can afford the initial outlay. You will get the value back.
 
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The second hand market thinks so as the resale values appear to hold up.

[/ QUOTE ] I wonder whether the better reputation of the Swedish yachts is partly attributable to the fact that their owners tend to be, er, wealthier, more likely to have their boats professionally maintained, and less likely to opt for cheaper solutions to the problems that occur.

Some owners spend more than others, but I get the impression that the average annual spend of Mr or Mrs average yachtsmen is somewhere in the region of 5-10% of the value of their yacht on maintenance, hi-tech gizmos and low-tech bits and bobs, irrespective of whether it is an 25-year-old 10K tub or a 5-year-old 200K HR.

So reputation could be self-sustaining. Just an idle thought.
 
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I bought a 1994 Moody, (rather than a much newer AWB), because of the quality - both apparent and perceived. However, I seem to have just as many problems as anyone else, possibly more, unless I am just more vocal.


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I cant comment on the Swedish boats but as an ex Moody owner I can comment on Moody quality. I loved the sailing performance of my Moody but the build quality was very ordinary and probably no better than BenJeanBav. You got the feeling that Marine Projects employed general labour rather than shipwrights and that they would be just as happy building caravans the next week. Ball valves for seacocks, softwood wedges holding headlinings in position, poor mouldings on things like locker lids, woodwork assembles in such a way you get to things like chainplates, sticky resin in lockers which werent flow coated, bad alignment of mainsheet track blocks. Nothing major and there were a lot of positives including a hull as dry as snuff, but my Moody certainly wasnt the premium brand boat I thought it was before I bought it.

Interestingly, my previous Prout was the opposite. Excellent design and shipwright quality built by people who sailed. But osmosis
 
I have delivered a few HR's direct from Sweden and I can say that I was shocked as to what was accepted as quality. These are boats that generally have been waiting over winter for spring delivery. Poorly finished cabin sole floors, dents and scratches in doors, swarf on teak decks, scratches in gel coat. Bear in mind they are the thick end of £250k I considered it to be very poor. Mind you the Najad factory was as bad. So an expensive boat gives you quality and longevity. Well my old Trapper 500 was built in 1979 and I saw her last week. My Fastnet 34 was built in 1984 and is still going very well and nothing untoward to report.

Yes the Scandinavian boats are well built, using good quality equipment, but it is only as good as the person that checks the quality control and in my experience so far, they have been sadly lacking
 
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Do owners of the Swedish Yachts find they are as reliable as the perception, or are they fixing things just as often as the rest of us?


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Yes they are as reliable as the rest of us.
 
Think cars. I have sailed French and Swedish boats and driven Fords and Mercedes. All do what they say on the lid - some with style and 'class' - the others just do it but are no real pleasure. IMO, the real question is why buy any "brand name" boat vs a semi-custom. I was told (anecdote) that 40% of the cost of an Oyster goes to marketing and sales - I imagine the same for any other AWB or HR. That's a hell of a lot of £££. There are a lot of smaller, less well known, shipyards where the money goes into the vessel. Sure, big boys get some volume discounts on gear but Amel et al can still produce excellent boats without massive overheads.
 
Further thoughts FWIW.

Nautical Ponzi/Madoff schemes. How many times have you seen/heard it said that buying an Oyster/HR/Malo et al will pay off when you want to sell it? Yet when you want to sell, you are told that you must sell through the main dealer otherwise the price will be adjusted to reflect there must be 'something wrong'.

Good luck to all involved - but I was not convinced. FWIW, after years lurking and dreaming, I bought a no-name boat. I paid a lot less than I would for an equivalent 'name' (think Swan 54); my maintenance and running cost will be more or less the same and when I come to sell, I think/hope/pray that the depreciation in relative terms will be much less.
 
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Yet when you want to sell, you are told that you must sell through the main dealer otherwise the price will be adjusted to reflect there must be 'something wrong'.

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Where did you get this information?

I bought mine privately, I sold mine privately (in a weekend, without survey and for cash and a profit of 20%).

If I were buying another I would look privately. I have owned eight boats, only one was bought through a broker (and that is all 'Main Dealers' are) and that was an unmitigated disaster.
 
I can identify with what you say because the reason we chose our Moody 425 was because of the specifics of the design...and Bill Dixon has been at it a long time too!

Two reasons we didn't buy an HR

1. We couldn't really afford anything but a very old one.
2. SWMBO didn't like em, too traditional and too manly apparently!...and when all is said and done she lives on board full time too.

End of discussion....for me at any rate.
 
Take a quick look through this site and you will see plenty of references to original broker pricing.

The point is whether you are selling relative to 'equivalent' value or not. Some boats hold their price better than others. This may be due to the maker spending ££££ on marketing to build brand name awareness and/or maintaining the 2nd hand market. Selling quickly privately could mean underpricing!

The point I was trying to make is how to value the no-name/low volume producer vs the brand name. The latter spends no money on marketing but doesn't get the volume discounts - the former can build cheaper through volume - but how much of this gets passed onto the 2nd hand buyer?
 
With respect, I don't think the OP was trying to compare Swedish boats to low volume manufactured or custom built boats. I interpreted his question to match Swedish with UK or French/German 'volume' builders.

Your points regarding custom boats are accepted. Tell me about it. I am trying to sell a 12 year old yacht, custom built steel ketch on a Bill Dixon Design, cost original owner over £400k. Value now is impossible to define but is not going to be much more than 30% of that figure.

A Dutch broker told me that I would have to await offers and hope that I felt able enough drop the price.

Not much chance of that I am afraid. I wish I was selling a HR.
 
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I don't want to start a pissing contest, but there is no such thing as a HR395. The HR39 has size 54 genoa winches and the HR40 has size 50 winches.

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Typo, boat is 385 HR. But your figures above prove my point that winch size relates to load more than boat length, because as you say the 40 has smaller winches than the 39.

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I can't say, but it's the first osmosis story about HR I've heard.


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The owner was very annoyed as he thought they were immune too. It seems the boat was built in two halves and one side had osmosis the other didn't, or not yet. I believe it was treated 'discreetly' which was also the case with the Nauticat. Another instance of a Maxi 1100 is mentioned by another poster so also not a one-off.

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If you read my response I've never said HR and alike are better value for money. I actually said the opposite. It's just that I like them more. To me they feel more like a 'proper yacht'. It's all about perceived value.

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Everyone loves their boat or they wouldn't have bought it. By the same token as your preference for the feel of the HR I have a similar preference for mine which outsails all of them. We crossed the Channel with the 385 HR which motor sailed all the way but we arrived well over an hour sooner and sailed all the way, beam wind F4. Had it been to windward we would have been 2hrs ahead and still used no diesel. But he does have nice teak decks although they just cost £20,000 to renovate last season and stop the leaks and sadly the caulking failed and has to be done again this year, another 6 weeks of sailing lost. Oh and talking of motoring, the same boat had a waterlocked engine when water got into the cylinders, HR hadn't fitted an anti-syphon when it was built.

The point is not a pissing contest but to bring some realism to the idea some have that all that is Swedish is better when sometimes it isn't. To use the car analogy of another poster, perception would have us believe that Mercedes, BMW and even VW/Audi are better but then look at the reliabilty scores of them and see they are very much not. That is not to say that the mass built boats are better either but many are certainly better than the press they get on here.
 
When I worked in Turkey for a year, I bought an BMW X5. One of the things that thought me "never again" was that in order to keep its residual value up, I had to maintain it to a high standard. A ding or scratch in my current Ford Focus, I don't mind. The slightest blemish in the X5 needed attention of the official dealer (who BTW charge as much in Brussels as in Turkey, where the average industrial wage is 350€ per month. You do get real service, though).

So I fear that the same applies to a Swedish boat. Yes, they have high residual values, but everybody expects them to be in great shape. A cosmetic flaw, like scuff marks or a worn teak deck) woud cause serious depreciation. So why do 1à year old HR look great: the owner is richer, the owner who buys a HR will invest more time, and they need to be maintained to a higher standard than the AWB.

But if the excrement hits the ventilator at sea, put me in a Swedish lump any time.
 
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