beneteau & Bavaria quality issues?

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gerry1

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Hello,

I have been reading a bit ons Beneteaus and Bavarias, and they seem to be on the poorer / lower standards of quality.

What kind of problems could I expect if I were to buy a 2000(ish), 40ft from one of these brands?
The plan is to sail the med for a few months, not cross oceans.

I heard a lot of complains about furniture: drawers coming appart, doors falling, etc. What else?

Also it seems to me that boats from around 2000 were better build than newer boats. As of when did the quality declined?

Thanks
G
 
Not sure what you are reading that makes you arrive at those conclusions. The quality of both brands are perfectly satisfactory for most cruising sailors. Lots of owners and charter business can’t all be wrong.
 
We circumnavigated in a Ben 423 built in 2004 from 2008 to 2015 and had no serious quality issues. Ther was an initial problem with the varnish work which had many tiny blisters . This was a common problem on boats of this age and Beneteau fixed it under warranty, which involved 2 french coming over to Ipswich for 10 days and completely re varnishing the interior. This even though we were the second owners and thr boat was by then 4 years old.

it was a bit creaky in a seaway but I guess any boat would be in the swells we experienced in the Indian Ocean. We had teak decks which were nearing the end of their life and a blue hull that was difficult to keep shiny. I would avoid both even if you are not going to the tropics. It is worth remembering these sort of boats are massed produced with any problems being evident early on in a model's life and being sorted. We met boats on our travels from well known "quality" yards that had significant problems.

I think the main issue with a boat 15 to 20 years old will be how it has been maintained, There will be excellent ones and awful ones. Happy hunting!
 
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slipknot said:
Not sure what you are reading that makes you arrive at those conclusions. The quality of both brands are perfectly satisfactory for most cruising sailors. Lots of owners and charter business can’t all be wrong.
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Agree, having had one Bavaria I was set on my next boat being be a Bavaria because it was a good well built boat, I have not bee disappointed with my choice
 
Well, it's no secret that BenJenBav are built to a price point which is a fair bit cheaper than the less well known (and typically Scandinavian) makes - you just need to compare the price of a 40 foot Bene with that of a similar size Najad to see this. I think that, in most cases, the cost saving is achieved mostly in the standard of the internal fit and less in the quality of the physical structure of the boat. There certainly have been cases of keels falling off BenJenBavs, but this is not unique to the budget end of the market - a dodgy keel joint effectively took Oyster out of business and they certainly are not budget boats.

It's a cyclic thing really - they have each gone through "good" periods and "bad" periods. It is probably the case that commercial pressures have generally driven build quality down over the last few years - the standard of internal fittings today certainly seems worse in most cases than would have been seen in an equivalent boat built around twenty years ago.
 
Welcome to the forums!

The proliferation of Bavarias and Beneteaus in charter fleets surely is testament to their quality - if a boat can survive years of charter use it's pretty well made!

I bought a 2014 Bavaria new, and I've been pleasantly surprised by the quality of construction. No creaks, no leaks, nothing has broken so far. My previous boat was a Hallberg-Rassy.
 
The thing I like about AWB is you can buy enough room to fit the stuff you need for cruising. I tried really hard to buy a “quality” boat. I found that every nook and cranny was occupied from the Swedish models leaving no room for additions without significant re modelling and in some popular models from the UK, the waste of space at the design phase was scandalous for a cruiser.

I picked up a very nice 2005 SO40.3 owners version. I spent as much again fitting her out and still have loads of space left over. Overall I am very pleased with the result.
 
pvb said:
The price is irrelevant though, charter companies wouldn't buy them if they fell apart in heavy use.
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Very true. The other advantage of all the charter sales is that BenJenBav get a lot of fast feedback on what features are liked, as well as those that are not. This enables the detail design features to be better sometimes than the more expensive Swedes.
 
pvb said:
The price is irrelevant though, charter companies wouldn't buy them if they fell apart in heavy use.
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Over here in the Caribbean the charter companies use Lagoon Catamarans. They fall apart in light use or heavy use. We know of three owners who bought new and have taken legal action against the manufacturer. We have a friend who owned a 620 who said it was the biggest pile of junk afloat. It doesnt matter if they fall apart the charter companies still use them.
 
geem said:
Over here in the Caribbean the charter companies use Lagoon Catamarans. They fall apart in light use or heavy use. We know of three owners who bought new and have taken legal action against the manufacturer. We have a friend who owned a 620 who said it was the biggest pile of junk afloat. It doesnt matter if they fall apart the charter companies still use them.
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I think there are a few Lagoon owners on the forums, maybe they could comment?
 
There is no magic recent cutoff date before which the various mass production boats (Ben/Jen/Bav etc) were much better quality. The one exception is for now quite old Bavarias, where in the 1980s/90s they quite markedly went from aiming to compete with the Swedes with Axel Monhaupt designs with really nice joinery, to cut-price assembly and serious mass production.

All the main builders have steadily reduced some aspects of "quality", in particular interior joinery, but the structural engineering has got more sophisticated. Resin is expensive, so modern hulls are thinner, and reinforced only where needed, not just thick everywhere. Lots of detail has changed too: if production boats now have an alloy toerail it will be held on by self-tappers, not through-bolts. Interior joinery has more square edges these days: the salesman says it is to look "modern", actually it's cheaper to build.

What charter companies and sailing schools use is a fairly good indicator. They need reasonably new boats to attract customers, but want them to go for 5-10 years in near-constant use (occasionally by numpties), with as little maintenance as possible, at as low a total cost as possible. Bavaria does well in this market.
 
Resolution said:
Very true. The other advantage of all the charter sales is that BenJenBav get a lot of fast feedback on what features are liked, as well as those that are not. This enables the detail design features to be better sometimes than the more expensive Swedes.
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That's an interesting assertion but it doesn't particularly relate to my experience. Comparing my HR to a friend's Bav and Hanse suggests that the HR is better thought out for use at sea, but this is only a small sample. HR are famously impervious to any suggestions about their boats, but fortunately they usually get most things right. I gather that Najad are much more amenable, for what it's worth.

There other ways of judging quality other than whether they fall apart. For one thing, in my cabins you will never see fibreglass without opening a locker, and not always then. The interior may not be to everyone's taste but my friends' boats look bland in comparison.
 
gerry1 said:
What kind of problems could I expect if I were to buy a 2000(ish), 40ft from one of these brands?
…

I heard a lot of complains about furniture: drawers coming appart, doors falling, etc. What else?
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It's the threads on the screws of the doorhandles on Beneteaus that I found to strip, and those of the grab rails¹ (although I suspect the latter may not have been properly tightened).

On a First 40.7 the latches on cupboard doors were the cheapest plastic ones, and in a seaway the doors had to be taped closed with gaffer tape, to stop the contents from spilling out. Taking waves over the bow in good conditions, we found an inch or two of water slopping about in the shelves in the forecabin (pic below), water ingress due to the construction of the hull-deck joint.

FeuYN1l.jpg


I haven't been in a Bavaria, but on four different Beneteaus and Jeanneaus built between 2000 and 2010. Last year I spent 2 days on one, 2 weeks on another, and a month each on the other two.

IMO they're perfect for what they were designed for, Mediterranean and coastal sailing, and I thought the layout and ergonomics mostly very good. They're clearly built to a price, and my theory is that the problems start showing up when the boat is around 8 or 10 years of age - the boat will serve the first owner perfectly, and the second owner will inherit these niggly problems.

I'm sure these boats would be perfectly fine for what you plan. The problems I've identified are clearly not life-threatening, but I just found them a little frustrating - they make the boat feel cheap.

¹ http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?506929
 
pvb said:
I think there are a few Lagoon owners on the forums, maybe they could comment?
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Our friends 620 had the front curved windows pop out whilst sailing! The saloon headlinings are healed up by Velcro. Sail them in bumpy conditions and they fall down. This is well known among Lagoon owners. Quite a few have crossed the Atlantic then gone on to the Pacific. The bulkheads come lose. In the Pacific there are quite a few that end up in the yards for major work.
Guys we know we're booked on to the ARC World with their 52. They bought the boat new. Crossed with the ARC to the Caribbean. Had so many problems with the boat they cancelled the ARC world and went legal with Lagoon. They are poorly built. Met a guy in Portugal with his brand new one. Stuck in a marina there whilst he took legal action against Lagoon.
I could go on but you get the idea.
 
geem said:
Our friends 620 had the front curved windows pop out whilst sailing! The saloon headlinings are healed up by Velcro. Sail them in bumpy conditions and they fall down. This is well known among Lagoon owners. Quite a few have crossed the Atlantic then gone on to the Pacific. The bulkheads come lose. In the Pacific there are quite a few that end up in the yards for major work.
Guys we know we're booked on to the ARC World with their 52. They bought the boat new. Crossed with the ARC to the Caribbean. Had so many problems with the boat they cancelled the ARC world and went legal with Lagoon. They are poorly built. Met a guy in Portugal with his brand new one. Stuck in a marina there whilst he took legal action against Lagoon.
I could go on but you get the idea.
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Yes, I've read some stories of shabby aftersales service with Lagoons, but equally there are loads of owners who love them.
 
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