Bavaria in administration?

Only their monohulls not their multihulls and they are keeping their factory open.
 
Seems to me, what with Oyster going - though they had a massive PR failure sealing their doom -

A, people haven't got as much money now

B, they've caught on fibreglass boats last forever so are buying secondhand
 
Multi hulls appeal more to motorboaters getting out of motorboats cause of running costs and also to women as nice and stable etc.Besides there seem just too many boats now.
 
Be interesting to follow how the Germans handle it if the firm does go into administration, compared to how the UK handles a British firm going into administration.

Brian
 
Wandering Star said:
Yes interesting, I wonder if that’s because multihulls don’t have keels so much less for the design team to have to worry about?
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I doubt that, their designers / naval architects will be more than competent.
 
Daydream believer said:
I am sure that if you look back over their past record Bavaria have had their problems
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I don't have access to their records. Going by the number of them in marinas and the lack of incidents associated with Bavaria, suggests that a) they were very popular and, b) they are very reliable.
 
A little more detail to be found here: https://www.br.de/nachrichten/unterfranken/inhalt/giebelstadt-bavaria-yachtbau-insolvent-100.html [in German].

My reading thereof suggests that the 600 affected employees are expected to be paid until the end of June at least, presumably as they fulfil their existing order book; also that the management is to be retained under the administrators, if I understand correctly.

It wouldn't surprise me that Bavaria may have very slim margins, but I had imagined that, given their enormous production volume, they would have been comfortably in the black. It will be interesting [and perhaps alarming, for the leisure boating sector as a whole] to see what happens.
 
Perhaps they weren't struggling. Perhaps there were significant potential liabilities in the wind. Perhaps they're 'phoenixing'.....
 
Daydream believer said:
Try this for a start:-

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There were well-known problems with the Bavaria Match series of yachts when they first came out, and I recall at least a couple of sinkings or near sinkings. This was the boy racer version of the normal Bavaria, with a bigger rig and a deeper keel. I don't recall anything similar with any of the mainstream Bavaria designs. One of the other leading manufacturers had similar problems with their equivalent to the Match, but managed to carry out modifications before any casualties hit the headlines.
Bit of a mountain out of a molehill, these hot hatches were never made in many numbers. I cannot conceive that the Match problems have anything to do with this latest news.
 
Resolution said:
There were well-known problems with the Bavaria Match series of yachts when they first came out, and I recall at least a couple of sinkings or near sinkings. This was the boy racer version of the normal Bavaria, with a bigger rig and a deeper keel. I don't recall anything similar with any of the mainstream Bavaria designs. One of the other leading manufacturers had similar problems with their equivalent to the Match, but managed to carry out modifications before any casualties hit the headlines.
Bit of a mountain out of a molehill, these hot hatches were never made in many numbers. I cannot conceive that the Match problems have anything to do with this latest news.
Click to expand...

Actually if one does a search In the past, they have had a reputation for some quite un-nerving design features such as flexing hulls & keel failures. My post was directed at the one by " Blowingoldboots" where he made the comment that they were "very reliable". I really wanted to point out that they were not quite so incident free as one might have thought. But I am not suggesting that they are any worse or better than those in that budget range.

However, I certainly do not think that having a keel fall off is making a mountain out of a mole hole. It has not just been their race boats that this has happened to. Neither can one use the excuse " Well it's a race boat" for the keel falling off.

That being said I nearly bought a new Bavaria some years ago & if in the market now I would not have discounted one ( administration accepted)
 
A fairly comprehensive report, in German, is available at http://www.boote-magazin.de/aktuell/news/sondermeldung/a49124.html

Edit: here are what seem to me to be the important bits

Auch intern gab es erkennbar Probleme. Insider berichteten schon im Vorjahr von schwerwiegenden Produktions- und Lieferproblemen, nachdem die bewährte Fließbandmethode modifiziert worden war. Auch hat die Werft zu lange mit der Erneuerung der Flotte gewartet und statt dessen mit großen Rabattaktionen versucht, Bestandsmodelle zu verkaufen.

However, internally there were recognisable problems (this comes after a section saying that everything looked fine from the outside - JD). By last year insiders were reporting serious problems with production and delivery, after which the production line system was modified. The yard had also waited too long to update its range, and instead was trying to use large discounts to sell existing models.

Dabei blitzte ein Hoffnungsschimmer auf. Für sämtliche Beschäftigten soll es demnach zunächst unverändert weitergehen; mindestens für die Dauer von drei Monaten sind ihre Jobs gesichert. Denn es liegen genug Aufträge vor. Gelänge es, den Fortbestand des Unternehmens fürs Erste zu gewährleisten, könnten Verluste für Eigner und Händler, die Boote angezahlt haben, und für Zulieferer, die in Vorleistung gegangen sind, weitestgehend vermieden werden.

[Going into administration] brings a glimmer of hope. For the whole of the workforce things should continue with no immediate changes; their jobs will be safe for at least three months, as there are enough orders. If it succeeds in protecting the existence of the company in the short term, losses for owners and dealers, who have paid for boats in advance, and for suppliers, who are owed money, should be reduced as far as possible.​

So by my reading they don't hold out much hope for more than an orderly wind-down. They say elsewhere that the Nautitech catamaran business, which Bavaria bought in 2014, is healthy and could be sold off if the whole business can't find a buyer.

The market has moved on, eh?
 
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