Real Differences Between Mass Produced and Quality Yachts

[roaringgirl]

So what consequences have you suffered from your choice? ... just for balance.

Perhaps you could list the downsides so anyone contemplating an older boat might be able to make a more informed decision concerning the pros and cons of 70s boats.

Parking is really hard as she doesn't want to turn. When you reverse, the direction is determined more by the wind than the rudder. She goes very slowly in anything below 15kts. It is very easy to stall when tacking. Where it's not chipped, the gelcoat is like chalk. The windows leak sometimes. She is not pretty by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[peter gibbs]

At risk of alienating some traditionalists I would like people's opinions on what is the real difference between say a Bavaria Cruiser 33 and a Hallbergh Rassy 342.

I will find the prices later but I think it may be 3 to 1.

When I compare on sailcalc the displacement etc are pretty similar.

So here we go:

Mahogony interior............... I don't want one!!!
Lead keel .......................... Maybe an option on some AWBs?
Tankage................. but I read that at least water ought to be kept in bottles for an ocean crossing due to potential contamination issues.
Fittings are the same??

So some of the difference in price must be from efficiencies in mass production.

In the good old days MABs had long keels, a seakindly motion etc. But to my unexpert eye a HR 342 or 372 is now medium displacement etc.

So why not buy an AWB for essentially its hull and upgrade it? Then you are starting new.

I just bought a 1994 boat and have probably spent 50% of its purchase price on new sails, prop, etc etc

So what is the best AWB hull??!!

It's true that almost all production vessels do what the literature says - float, sail, etc. Rarely does one open up or endanger the crew unexpectedly. If you want the basic qualities with some money left in your pocket for other things, go with the Bavaria / Beneteau model. They sail the world and many have arrived on their own bottoms so are fit for purpose. When you come to sell you will recover a good part of your initial spend, with the exception that instrumentation and sails are usually reckoned at nominal value.

Buying a Scandi or expensive Italian marque will cost quite a lot more, will have designer touches by way of real brass fittings etc When you run your hand under the lockers on a Bav / Benny you are more likely to encounter rougher patches of glassing or paintwork, doors of flat veneer construction rather than panel doors of real timber etc. etc When you sell the same formula applies. So I conclude after years facing these questions over my beer, how much money do you want tied up in your hobby? That's it. Not so different really to many other major expenditures in life - perceptions.

PWG

 

[pvb]

When you run your hand under the lockers on a Bav / Benny you are more likely to encounter rougher patches of glassing or paintwork, doors of flat veneer construction rather than panel doors of real timber etc.

My old HR352 was built in 1990, supposedly the time when Scandinavian craftsmanship and hand-finishing was at its peak. My observation is that my 2014 Bavaria is finished to a much higher standard in those out-of-the-way corners.

 

[Baggywrinkle]

My old HR352 was built in 1990, supposedly the time when Scandinavian craftsmanship and hand-finishing was at its peak. My observation is that my 2014 Bavaria is finished to a much higher standard in those out-of-the-way corners.

... and this is why I guess (If you don't mind the cheesy commentary).

... compare and contrast with Island Packet.

 

[roblpm]

Well there's this ... at not a bad price but unfortunately in Grenada and sold - 2 cabin versions are quite rare. It obviously has no right to be there as it's keel or rudder should have fallen off mid Atlantic, but there you go.

2003 Bavaria 36 Cruiser Power New and Used Boats for Sale -

I have a 3 cabin version of the Bavaria 36, and it comes in extremely handy for either taking friends/couples sailing or providing petulant teenagers with their own space. Don't know your personal circumstances but my boat has been fantastic for taking my sons and their girlfriends sailing, or just providing 2 friends with their own space. When a cabin is unoccupied it makes a great storage area for windsurf equipment, inflateable Kayaks, SUP boards etc. ... when you drop to the 2 cabin version, you usually get a slightly bigger head and a deep cockpit locker instead.

Great. Personal circumstances are that 2 teenagers and a divorce later I am the poorest I have been since 1997....................................!!!! Ahahahaha

Yes the teenagers who aren't particularly interested now are just at university going age so I can see them being slightly more interested in a trip or 2 in a few years. Probably more interested in Grenada than Stornoway though!!

Ok. Just to throw a wild card in though............... Am I allowed a bit more sporty? Then I can pretend I am going to do the Fastnet as well!:

Elan 333 (too small but cheaper to run?!) Elan 333 Used Boat for Sale 2004 | TheYachtMarket
Sunfast 37 (slightly out of budget!) Jeanneau Sun Fast 37 Used Boat for Sale 2001 | TheYachtMarket

 

[steve yates]

Fine, but I think that what Baggy is saying is that the SCIENCE of making hulls has advanced more than you are prepared to admit.
Nothing wrong with mitigating risks, just be sure that the advice you give is up to date and correct.

Has it really? Its a commonly posted idea that fibreglass now can be thin because they understand it better. But personally I would be more inclined to think they learned to make the fibreglass as thin as they could get away with, especially after the oil crisis, primarily to build to a profitable price point. In other words, while science and techniques may have moved on, thinner fibreglass was driven by cost saving and then the marketing depts spun how it is so much better.

Sure I know it makes for faster hulls, and if your a racer great, but we're talking cruising boats here, for distance sailing. If they were really driven by science why did they fit all those production boats with cheap shoddy skin fittings?

Most boats could make a circumnavigation with luck and a competent skipper, but wouldn't it make sense to choose one that increases your chances when your luck runs out?

 

[pvb]

Has it really? Its a commonly posted idea that fibreglass now can be thin because they understand it better. But personally I would be more inclined to think they learned to make the fibreglass as thin as they could get away with, especially after the oil crisis, primarily to build to a profitable price point. In other words, while science and techniques may have moved on, thinner fibreglass was driven by cost saving and then the marketing depts spun how it is so much better.

Sure I know it makes for faster hulls, and if your a racer great, but we're talking cruising boats here, for distance sailing. If they were really driven by science why did they fit all those production boats with cheap shoddy skin fittings?

Most boats could make a circumnavigation with luck and a competent skipper, but wouldn't it make sense to choose one that increases your chances when your luck runs out?

GRP lay-up specifications will be dictated by the designers and naval architects who design the boats, and who all have reputations to uphold. It's easy to show that the hull weight of most modern yachts isn't much different from those of yesteryear, but the modern yachts will be inherently stronger. The old unscientific way of building GRP yachts wasn't great (eg Westerly keels).

As for skin fittings, their minimum spec is laid down by regulations, and most builders simply meet the regulations.

 

[jbweston]

I'm not going to enter the debate about 'build quality'.

One very important that sold me on my Malö 37 was the design. She's roughly 38 feet overall. In that space she has two cockpit lockers each big enough for at least one large man to get in and move around and a cockpit where we can walk around the wheel without having to step up onto lockers or deck. There's a semi-permanent pram hood running back to a targa arch that's dry in all weathers for keeping watch and doing any chart work. It's quick and easy to enclose the rest of the cockpit in harbour. She has a decent forecabin and a small aft cabin - in reality a generous quarter berth with a door - and a really spacious saloon with lots of locker space. In comfort she sleeps two in two cabins (or three if two people share the forecabin) without using the saloon and perhaps one or even two more if they slum it in the saloon. But with two or three on board she's very comfortable.

She has large water tanks and a big chain locker. The side decks are wide and the cabin roof fairly flat, and most of the control lines are fed back round to the cockpit coamings so they don't eat into the space under the pram hood or get in the way in the cockpit.

Even if she's built no better than a French, German or whatever production-line boat, most of them seem to be designed to fit in more berths and cabins. Elbow room is out of the window. As I sail about 50 percent of the time by myself and the rest with no more than three of us, I want elbow room and stowage not berths.

I accept that 'build quality' means different things to different people. One definition of quality is 'conformance to spec'. I think Bavarias in particular get a poor press when actually they are 'quality' in the conformance to spec sense. Built to provide what many customers want at a price they are prepared to pay. What's wrong with that?

Take cars. You can debate all day whether a Toyota or VW is better built than a Bentley. The point is that they are built to conform to different specs. It's cars that don't conform to spec that are the problem. Once I had an MGC. Even in the early 1970s it's not possible that the spec called for a car that overheated in traffic - although it could be relied on 100 percent consistently to overheat in traffic.

 

[[178529]]

I often watch the Patrick Laine videos where he is doing some impressive offshore passages in his Bavaria 40. He is clearly careful about the weather he sets out in but nevertheless his bav 40 seems to handle.thungs pretty well.

 

[robmcg]

I often watch the Patrick Laine videos where he is doing some impressive offshore passages in his Bavaria 40. He is clearly careful about the weather he sets out in but nevertheless his bav 40 seems to handle.thungs pretty well.

I agree, but in bigger seas the creaking of the inside of his boat would drive me nuts. It must be flexing a fair bit.

 

[Just_sayin']

I agree, but in bigger seas the creaking of the inside of his boat would drive me nuts. It must be flexing a fair bit.

That's ironic. On our way down to the Med we met a couple doing the same in their Rassy.

It creaked so much in harbour when there was a swell they regularly spent nights in local B&B's.

 

[robmcg]

That's ironic. On our way down to the Med we met a couple doing the same in their Rassy.

It creaked so much in harbour when there was a swell they regularly spent nights in local B&B's.

Time to put it on brokerage - but show it on the hard ;-)

 

[Carib]

That's ironic. On our way down to the Med we met a couple doing the same in their Rassy.

It creaked so much in harbour when there was a swell they regularly spent nights in local B&B's.

Likely this was fenders creaking or warps squeaking on fairleads? (Not because it's a HR, just because it seems unlikely swell in harbour would cause flexing on any boat).

 

[Just_sayin']

just because it seems unlikely swell in harbour would cause flexing on any boat).

Not all boats moor to pontoons.

 

[pvb]

Likely this was fenders creaking or warps squeaking on fairleads? (Not because it's a HR, just because it seems unlikely swell in harbour would cause flexing on any boat).

Probably, but the floor panels in my old HR352 creaked dreadfully, especially the one by the heads into the forecabin. One day, I had a cunning plan and bedded it down on beads of silicone sealant. It stopped it creaking, but I was never able to lift it again...