Buying a 32 ft cruiser - Advice please!

[Sailfree]

On the charter market the new Dufours are getting a reputation for poor fit out and poor after sales service and its touch and go whether Hanse are worse put together than Bavaria BUT both Hanse and the dufour 34/40/44 have fine entry bows and sail well.

Both may be fine for some owners but the charter market will expose weak hinges or poor details the quickest.

Will now duck and wait for all the owners of Dufour & hanse to reply.

 

[Barr Avel]

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Bavaria and their new owners Bain (who paid 9 billion for them) should have stepped in by now to pick up the pieces.

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Why? The whole point of having a distributor for a reagion is you as the builder can get on and do what you do best - build boats. It is not Bavaria's fault that PetersOpal went bust, and from a business point of view they would have had one hell of a job trying to work out the position was re: SIBS. There is only so much you can do in two weeks.

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Because the other manufacturers have (at least they have contacted owners to-be)! It isn't Bavaria's fault (as far as I know), but it was a good PR opportunity lost. I am very surprised that they haven't even made any public comment on the situation.

Marc.

 

[dt4134]

I've chartered both a Dufour 34 and a Hanse 341 before. The Dufour was significantly faster. In fact after all I'd heard about Hanses I was a bit disappointed in the sailing performance of the 341, but on the positive side I thought the quality of the woodwork down below was much better than a typical Bavaria. The Dufour on the other hand was brand new and the quality of the woodwork looked rather poor to me.

 

[Sailfree]

Thanks for informed comment and experience. As with many others I learn the facts from my own limited experience and useful contributions like yours.

Thanks

 

[Duffer]

I've got one of the new Dufours and the wood work, upholstery etc look as good as new after 3 seasons. Maybe the charter boats which were built to order weren't fitted out to the same standard but that seems unlikely. And she does go!

 

[Sailfree]

Sunsail buy Jeanneaus with slightly modified specification for the charter market market eg easily removable headlining for ease of maintenance. Probably Jeanneau listen to these comments and incorporate suitable ones into their production boats otherwise to the best of my knowledge ALL charter boats are sold to punters that put them out on charter and are standard production boats.

We all have different standards of finish that we expect. Some are happy and some not with the same finish. I am sure that standards of finish also vary between boats.

 

[scopas]

HERE GOES! Just put the deposit down on a deep fin wheel steering Dufour 32 Classic yr 2000. Lets hope the survey doesn't show any horrors...

Thanks to everyone for their feedback - great comments (mainly).

I apologise if I appeared to be bashing the reputation of Bavs - certainly not the case. Maybe if I was braver and less brand sensitive I would have bought one and been happy but at the end of the day I have to feel totally happy and proud of my new toy!

 

[photodog]

Excellent choice, you are buying a very nice boat, that should give plenty of fun!!! If I could have found one in my budget a few years back I would have bought her!!

See you out there!!

 

[poter]

Have to agree with PhotoDoug...excellent choice, the 32 classics do have a great rep. & are fairly nippy as well.

poter

 

[Duffer]

Well done! Hope all goes well. I think the 32 makes a very good family cruiser.