Bavaria 42

capnsensible

capnsensible

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15 Mar 2007
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Dear Mr. Bavaria,

Well done for producing a nice and comfortable well mannered yacht.

However, as always, there is room for improvement.

A bit more room to get around the wheel and a better handrail to hold on to would make life a bit easier.

Also you should have a few words with your designer who put both heads on the same side of the boat. When sailing close hauled for a few days on port tack means you have no sea water flush. Normally solved by using the shower head for a fresh water flush.

As well as a few words with the fresh water pump installer, please feel free to give him a bit of a slap on behalf of my crew. By putting it so high up in the aft heads, when close hauled for a couple of days you cannot use fresh water to flush the heads without a lot of messing about to re prime it every time.

The rest of your staff did well though! ;)
 
Did you check it had a keel :)

Just kidding... never been a fan of bav production boats unless it's an early 90's boat..... saying that I put a deposit on a new bav 38 holiday in 1995. Thank god I bought a brand new moody s38 instead...
 
You've obviously crossed oceans in them. Are they really up to it ?

I took a 40.7 across biscay. Standing a the rear you physically could see the hull twisting when it was blowing.

Thumbs up on the moody
 
Yeah, joking apart, they feel right for the job. Quite chunky in fact. Definitely on the cruiser side of the seesaw.

I reckon there are a lot of yachts that are actually capable of long distance sailing. Been over to the Carib twice on our Moody despite lots of people thinking its too small.
 
Last edited:
Elecglitch said:
Err, they ploughed on into the 1950s and 60s and formed the backbone of more that a few post war merchant fleets?
Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship#Problems

Early Liberty ships suffered hull and deck cracks, and a few were lost due to such structural defects. During World War II there were nearly 1,500 instances of significant brittle fractures. Twelve ships, including three of the 2,710 Liberties built, broke in half without warning,
Click to expand...

Our 2000/2001 Bavaria 40 Ocean has safely taken us from the cold, dark waters of the English channel across Biscay, down to the Algarve, through Gibraltar and back up to the Islas Baleares where it now happily floats on the warm, turquoise waters (with her freshly scrubbed bottom) and is fed a steady supply of suicidal jetskiers. That journey included 4-5m waves off the west coast of Portugal, several nights with over 40 knots wind at anchor and motoring upwind in a gale at sea with up to 47 knots wind and into a very nasty short chop. Yes, it creaks a bit in big seas and some of the fibreglass tabbing is done with less than loving care and there were some minor bodge jobs in evidence, but not nearly as many or as bad ones as the ones the guy on YouTube refitting a Warrior 38 is finding on his "reputable" boat (or the one found on an Oyster when the keel got damaged and there were mysterious pieces of stamped iron coming out instead of the lead that Oyster swore they put in). While my dream boat was a custom built aluminium hulled lift keeler, that would've meant working like a fool for several more years, then building a boat for another couple years instead of being out here cruising, so I feel I've got a very good boat for the money I spent. The surveyor thought so too (and yes, he tried hard to make the keel wobble).

Oh, and our freshwater pump works and our toilet flushes (although it does sometimes suck air, but you just wait for the next wave and pump some more).
 
capnsensible said:
They were both early year 2000 ish. They really are a lot better than people imagine.
Click to expand...

It was after chartering a 42 new in 2000 that I bought a 37 - essentially a slightly shrunk 42. Tough as they come and did 7 seasons charter work with no real problems. Brought back from Greece to UK then sold to a family who have since taken her back to the Med and are delighted with it. Replaced inevitably with another Bavaria.
 
People who knock them are typically people who have never owned or sailed them. They are tough beasts and the J&J designed boats are really nice cruisers which are nicely balanced and behaved. We've been out in all weathers in ours and across the Atlantic and never felt unsafe.
 
Yngmar said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship#Problems
Click to expand...

The primary cause was that brittle-ductile transition temperatures were not understood. Overcome on later ships by increasing the manganese-carbon ratio to 4:1, as they all are today. A secondary cause was poor welding due to employment of just about anybody who could stand up, as all the trained people were fighting the war.
 
I have only sailed one Bavaria - a 39 - chartered in the early 2000’s. It was a much better fitted out boat than both the Jen 39i’s I chartered next. With their chipboard tables and stupid glass galley shelf etc. I was expecting the opposite and wondered why so many folks knocked them. None of them saw any serious weather on those charters in the Med or Virgin Islands, so I can’t comment on their seaworthiness.
 
Chartered a Bav 42 with my girlfriend in the Baltic. Seemed fine to me. Better than my bilge keel Coribbee by every single measure except draft. :D
 
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