Bavaria 30 Cruiser

B

Bavarian

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21 Nov 2005
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After a year of searching for a used boat, I have finally been persuaded to order a new Bavaria 30 Cruiser. We previously sailed a GP14 and took charter holidays. I quite fancied a Sadler 29 or Moody 27 but SWMBO wanted hot water and wheel steering etc., and my 15 year old son wanted street cred.

1. Have I made the right decision/compromised well?

2.The bow anchor is being factory supplied but what would be the suggestion for an appropriate kedge anchor i.e type, weight, chain/warp length combination.

We will be basing the boat in the Solent.
 
I have a Bavaria and I am very happy with it. An excellent yacht, not fancy but sturdy in all the right places. I looked around the LBs and Southampton Boat show and came to the conclusion that BAVs are just good value. Not fancy but better than some of the FR yachts... Enjoy it... I am sure you will....
 
Not familiar with the boat, saw it at LBS and thought that, on the surface, they look good value, but you have to bear in mind that this market is highly competitive and they are cheap because they are, well...cheap. I have concerns about the integrity of their build quality born out of readers comments and the incidents you read about.

Anyway moving on - depreciation is to be considered if for some reason you need to sell on in the early years, and there are alternative in this price range. How much are you paying for it specced up? If you are paying £45k ish for the boat on the water then you will get the extras you want and maybe a few more from a used 32fter either from Bav, Ben or Jen. My favourite for you would be the Beneteau 311. A choice of keel options, plenty around so you can bid (low) with confidence and at leisure and now is a good time to pick one second hand when peeps are upgrading. And you should avoid all the niggles that go with a new boat.

Good luck
 
You will hear a lot of opinions here that will suggest that you have been stupid in choosing a Bav. I disagree and think that you have chosen a boat that meets your needs.

We have opted for a Bav 33 and take delivery in a couple of weeks so will hopefully be able to give better feedback shortly.

I also looked at the Sadler. If I intended to spend my days on the boat with a bunch of hairy-chin crew and go home at night I may well have gone that route. As I sail with my family and need decent storage to stow all the stuff that goes with that sort of crew I felt that the Bav was a better option. (Same criteria ruled out the Ben, Jen and Dufour)

We have also gone for the Bav plough. Would have preferred a Genuine CQR but the anchor locker mouldings would not accept a big enough CQR so opted for the big Bavaria Plough.

For a kedge we intend to get and aluminium Guardian (5.9Kg) as it folds flat and can be stowed easily.

Good luck with your choice. You just need to accept that there are peeps out there who have a lot of money and would rather buy a much more expensive boat and slag off the cheaper end of the market.

Cheers

Wayne
 
Guilty as charged your honour, but perhaps you have not considered how SWMBO is going to cope leaping from such a great height on to a slippery pontoon whilst you try and controle the bearthing of the beast in a cross-wind. /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
 
Trust me, SWIMO would not be doing that from any boat. Me maybe yes.

Something that we are are just going to have to learn to deal with. Guess that it is going to be the same with any AWB. At least the Bav turns on a sixpence though./forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif

W
 
[ QUOTE ]
Trust me, SWIMO would not be doing that from any boat.

[/ QUOTE ]

In that case yours isn't boken in properly.
On our boat this comes under "love, honour and OBEY"

She wanted an old-fashioned wedding - so we had old-fashined vows to go with it
 
Come again ????

Quote >You just need to accept that there are peeps out there who have a lot of money and would rather buy a much more expensive boat and slag off the cheaper end of the market.<

I am at the cheapo end of market with little money to waste on boats etc. - I have to look for bargains in boat and gear ... I would not buy a Bav in preference to many other boats I can think of. But that is a personal view based on MY thoughts and observations .....

To the guy buying the 30 ... I wish you luck and I hope you get all the enjoyment out of her that you expect. Regardless of whether the boat meets others spec's or not is irrelevant ... you have chosen a "proven" boat .... for what ever reason. (I do think the lad's idea of "street cred" is a bit out of touch though !!!

IMHO ---- this purely for ME and am not advising others ... for same money - I would be looking at a 3 - 5 yr - even older depending on Model / Company - old alternative boat already commissioned and equipped ... slightly bigger probably and all kinks hopefully ironed out.....
 
One time ...

Our marina is plagued by the newer narrower fingers on pontoons ... such that we were coming in ... SWMBO neatly stepped off ... slip, whoops, sploosh !!

Fingers unless another boat is tied on other side are so tippy as to be lethal ...

She has now decided that mooring is best left to me as a single hander !! Or look for another ON the pontoon to take the line .. she has so far refused to go swimming again ....

It didn't help that I had her half out of water, put her back in again to stop boat drifting (boat was secure only with stern-line ... bow line was in water with her !!) and then had to get another to help to get her out ...
When tide went out there were two foot-marks in the mud right where she went in !!!
 
Re: Come again ????

I would second the opinion of buying a newish second-hand boat. Same as in cars the price drops dramatically after a few years. A proven second-hand yacht will have all the necessary kit that is added as options to a new boat. You will also get a larger, better quality marque for similar price. For about £40 - £50k you can get a very nice HR312 that will outlast all of us and is built to last. All IMHO. Just bought a new (old) car - Peugeot 406 HDI Estate. Lovely condition (£22k four years ago, I paid less than £3K
 
Re: Come again ????

We took a short look at second hand but decided against.

One of the reasons that we are buying another boat is to move away from endless maintenance that we have on an older boat. I'm fully aware that boating will always involve maintenance but hopefully this will be less on a new boat compared to what we have had to put up with so far.

Sure, a 3-5yr is prob similar to new in that aspect but at least we know what we are getting with new. We have been hit with far too many surprises in the past which has made me weary of trusting anybody else’s DIY.

At least with a fully kitted out new boat I can go back to Opal and kick them

W
 
Opal ...

Mmmmmmmmmmm .... I think there are one or two I know that think Opal need quite a few harder kicks - especially after I saw their attempts to reset / repair a faulty rudder ... which they failed repeatedly at ... Bav 34.

But then again I'm sure there are many that will say they have rec'd very good service and support ....

I still like the idea of a fully kitted out s/hand boat .... but then again I'm still trying to find the dosh to even think about another boat !! (I did have 3 .... now only 2 !)
 
Re: Come again ????

[ QUOTE ]
1. Have I made the right decision/compromised well?

[/ QUOTE ]
of course you have!.... you'll love her.... everyone loves their own boat.... SWMBO will love her too.... just as you'd have loved a Sadler, or whatever you bought...
FWIW, I think the Bavs are incredibly good value for money....

[ QUOTE ]
2.The bow anchor is being factory supplied but what would be the suggestion for an appropriate kedge anchor i.e type, weight, chain/warp length combination.

[/ QUOTE ]
Anything that folds flat and can therefore be stuffed in a locker.... pref with chain, but a warp would also be OK for a kedge..... get as big as you can get away with (within reasonable handling,grounds) as for sure, you'll need it as some point for kedging off, and the little ones can get bent quite easily when you do that.....
 
One of the things that struck me about Bavarias is that the smaller you go, the better the relative quality is. This is probably because of the volume production methods that encourage commonality across the range. So for example, a substantial reiforcement (eg. hull deck join) in a small model would be flimsy on a big one. Although Bavaria do scale things like reinforcement a bit, I don't think it is proportional to the loads. This to me is also reflected in the pricing as the bigger models seems to be cheaper compared to the competition than the smaller models.

With that logic I reckon you got the best quality boat in the range with the Bavaria 30, so have fun with it.

(By the way not having a dig at bigger Bavarias because this logic says that you got a proportionally cheaper boat, so you pays your money and makes your choice)
 
Can anyone give a guide to depreciation?

I'm currently sans boat and I am looking for something 30-34 ft in the next couple of years, I was amazed at the price of a new bavaria 30, I think it was somewhere around the £40K mark, could anyone hazard a guess how much it would likely depreciate over say 3-5 years?
 
Re: Come again ????

How much is the list price of the 30 fully speced out. I ask out of interest as we went aboard the 30 Bav at LIBS staggered at a price of only £30k and overheard 2 people asking their dissapointed friend "so how did £30k become £50k?"
 
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