Why are bavarias so cheap?

[trouville]

Re: trouble with design briefs ...

Well Zefender, I just fitted freewheeling hubs!! Never realised how reasonably priced they are! Now she glides!

Its true that the ride is firm and the seats agricultural from the 50s perhaps lacking todays silencing materials but a compleat new exhast system only costs from £36 !!

And it took the rest of Europe years to realise that a large 4X4 is quite strong ive been in fashon for years!!

One boat question? in 2004 while i was pottering around the walm barmy med, I would come into a port go along the the capitanery and when i asked for place for a 12 meter boat they would just laugh!

As they dident look at the papers (they mostly know me) i would ask for a 9.90m place they would still say that their full!

As i would be leaving i would see a J24 or such sized boat being shown a place they could "squez" into when i had droped my anchor and setteled to the rolling with the ferry wash i would see the folkboat next to me getting his anchor up haveing spent the day in town and head off to a small fishing port where he would spend a comfortable night.

Where are all these new boats being sent out every 15 mins going to stay?? Even some very large and open bays are full in summer??? Ill bet most of the baverias even if only 10 m long have to take a 15m place becouse of there beem!

Where are all these ports with empty space?? I really havent found them?


NB I have a MK3 from 1977 as well now that is comfortable! even has a break servo! And a heater that walms! but the ones from the 50,s dont spoil the driver and goes very well with a comfortable Folkboat!

What does "IMHO" meen?

 

[KevB]

Ashanta,

Can I ask what your family car is?

 

[BrendanS]

Re: trouble with design briefs ...

Hmmm! Have you got bored with this persona. You dropped out of Trouville type completely there, and started posting like another forumite entirely

 

[LeonF]

/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[trouville]

Can I ask what your family car is?

Just deleated my post! thoght you were asking me!!!

 

[LeonF]

Nice post Simon, but I remember reading the words of Herreshoff who said one should buy the most expensive small boat one could afford.
This debate will rage on and on, but it is important as an aid to the new yotties who may be basing their first purchase on spurious criteria.
I have never sailed a Bav but had people on board my 20 year old Sigma 33 who were thrilled by the way she sailed in contrast to the Bav. I subsequently decided to go smaller and am glad I did so. I remember entering Soveriegn harbour in Eastbourne single handed alongside a large Oceanis. It was impressive, but chatting to the owner, a novice sailor, who said he was offered an amazing package at the boat show, he was disappointed that things were breaking already!!!

 

[Guest]

LR\'s hubs etc.

I've had LR's with locking hubs, freewheeling hubs etc. etc.

IMHO (In MY Honest / Humble Opinion) - I can say it was still uncomfortable what ever hubs I had ... BUT can say - ther is nothing like an old LR .....

You either love'em or hate 'em .... I love 'em - my ex hates 'em.

 

[StugeronSteve]

Re: Early breakages?

I have owned an Oceanis 331 for nearly four years and, after the early speight of snags, which I suspect manifest themselves in the first year or two of any boats life, the boat has proven to be generally solid, reliable and comfortable. On the whole the build is basic, but solid. Furniture can be dismantled and rebuilt, as I have discovered when something had to be retrieved from beneath an aft cabin locker unit.

Capable of a Cherbourg-Needles crossing in <8.5hrs, under full sail in a F6. Quite happy to beat its way out of the Needles channel in a F5 wind against tide, to which other forumites can testify, and good fun for both novice and experienced hands to sail.

Bits on new boats, cars, houses and whatever break, always have and always will. Don't think this is a problem restricted to AWBs.

Bits break on new boats, always have and always will.

 

[Sailfree]

Be careful, Bavaria have a promotional video showing one of their models going I believe at about 5kts into a quay wall. Little damage resulted duie to the Kevlar reinforced GRP. Just remember how incredibly strong Fomula 1 cars are now and how badly the apparently strong land rover did in collision tests , I was staggered at how deformed the structure was. With modern materials and designs big and heavy does not necessarily equate to the strongest.

While I am saddened by the lost keel on the match 42 I think generally Bavaria have pushed the material and design envelope to produce the lightest possible boats compatible with strength.

Its always difficult to sort fact from fiction on these posts but apart from the posts where they want to ridicule AWB's I don't see many dissatisfied Bav owners and was suprised to read of the keel problems on a number of swedish boats.

 

[zefender]

Re: trouble with design briefs ...

[ QUOTE ]
NB I have a MK3 from 1977 as well now that is comfortable! even has a break servo! And a heater that walms! but the ones from the 50,s dont spoil the driver and goes very well with a comfortable Folkboat!


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I'd imagine the two would fit very well indeed. You thoughtfully pointed out on another thread that Bavs are just flotaing caravans with a BBQ on the back. This is true of course and Bav owners like nothing more than using knackered old Folkboats as kindling having first prized out the owner using a toothpick.

 

[Guest]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't see many dissatisfied Bav owners and was suprised to read of the keel problems on a number of swedish boats.

[/ QUOTE ]
I once moored next to a Bavaria owner who had just taken delivery of his boat a few days before. He was in a major dilemma because the boat had some major structural problems (he wouldn't say what, so I can't tell you, I think it related to the main bulkhead, but he was very depressed about it), and he was supposed to sail the boat round the country to his home port. He was in a major quandry but was coming to conclusion that he would have to return the boat to the agent. He said that it wasn't the kind of problem that could be repaired, would involve a whole new boat.

I recognise that from your point of view that is just hearsay, but to me it was a real conversation and real dilemma for this chap. I wouldn't draw conclusions from it, as it's quite possible that Bavaria replaced the boat with another one, but I wouldn't say that I haven't heard any unhappy owners.

 

[Koeketiene]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't see many dissatisfied Bav owners and was suprised to read of the keel problems on a number of swedish boats.

[/ QUOTE ]
I once moored next to a Bavaria owner who had just taken delivery of his boat a few days before. He was in a major dilemma because the boat had some major structural problems (he wouldn't say what, so I can't tell you, I think it related to the main bulkhead, but he was very depressed about it), and he was supposed to sail the boat round the country to his home port. He was in a major quandry but was coming to conclusion that he would have to return the boat to the agent. He said that it wasn't the kind of problem that could be repaired, would involve a whole new boat.

I recognise that from your point of view that is just hearsay, but to me it was a real conversation and real dilemma for this chap. I wouldn't draw conclusions from it, as it's quite possible that Bavaria replaced the boat with another one, but I wouldn't say that I haven't heard any unhappy owners.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have in the past done two delivery trips for brandnew Bavarias. Both suffered major structural damage in their first few days at sea.
Mind you: one trip was in November, the other one in March. Not exactly ideal sailing weather - some heavy seas, but wind never more than a F7. Given the size of the boats (38 & 40ft) you would expect them to handle it. And owners insisted on sailing.

One spent another 6 months being "repaired" and in case of the 40ft-er it resulted in a new boat (they wouldn't give him a refund).

 

[trouville]

Re: trouble with design briefs ...

Dear Zeafender That would be an error!! there are 4000+ folkboats most sailed by Vikings that would rally to help another from such dreadful piracy and barbarisum!
Even if that FB owner was not a fully paid up memeber of the Viking order!!

I might mention as well that the acient order of seiries landrovers may also arrive with pink panthers equipe with morters and large swivell machine gun albeit a 109 MK2A still very efective and very fast deployment

bavarias would have no chance there not even as fast as a Folkboat in a chanel when a tack or twos needed!! In open sea well the bav would be faster? but over F4 with a bit of swell the baveria could well fall apart before it could catch an agile 1947 Folkboat, let alone a modern IF

 

[jhr]

Re: Early breakages?

[ QUOTE ]
Capable of a Cherbourg-Needles crossing in <8.5hrs, under full sail in a F6. Quite happy to beat its way out of the Needles channel in a F5 wind against tide, to which other forumites can testify

[/ QUOTE ]
Oh yes, baby! A cracking boat. And I don't mean the gelcoat...... /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[LeonF]

Re: Early breakages?

Glad you are happy with your boat, and yes I agree things do break. Just recounting what this guy told me. And of course there were the fatalities in an Oceanis a while back, near Biscay I believe, where the suitability of the boat was questioned. When I owned my Sigma I talked to a guy who raced one and sold Jeanneaus and he told me that a knock in a Sigma usually resulted in a scuffed gel coat, in a Jeanneu it resulted in broken fittings internally. Abit like the little turbo diesel Nissan Micra I hired in Spain a while back I expect...great car to drive and handle, comfortable for long hours on the motorways, but dentable with one's little finger. I am not into knocking other people's boats, it is just the inexperience with whcih people sometimes buy and believe volume and price are all which leads to debates such as this one. But then I suppose we all have to start somewhere. It is like the old quip about wives being like boats....one has to try 2 or 3 before one finds the one most suited to oneself..

 

[duncan]

fine - and your response adressed to sailfree above is quite exquisite...........agree every word.

finally OOD34's - happy days of hard work in the Lymington Autumn series a 'few' years ago; raced Fighter Pilot, Redcoat and Rubber Duck .........memories!

 

[jimi]

Re: Early breakages?

Have you ever read the accident report on the accident to the Oceanis 390 in Biscay. Suggest you do leaping to the conclusion the boat design was to blame. From what I recall the prime cause of the accident was poor skippering. Also read the report on the 70 footer.

 

[Twister_Ken]

I think it was an OOD34 which Pete Goss and A.N.Other once almost sank in a 2-handed transatlantic a good few years back, it started delaminating in the bows area because of the way the sections panted. According to Goss, they pretty well pumped their way acros the last thousand miles.

OTOH, the one I raced on, K9134, seemed a good old tub.

 

[LeonF]

Re: Early breakages?

No I haven't....is it available on line ??? I seem to remember the AVS coming in for criticism. In the end we all buy boats from gut instinctlike cars and houses. I know of a Contessa 26 and a Frances 26 that were both dropped from slings. And were relatively unscathed..in the case of the Frances the surveyor went over the boat and was astonished to find not a thing wrong,,this in spite pf a resounding thump as it fell onto the pontoon. Now how many other boats.....

 

[Sailfree]

Am I getting a false impression as no Bavaria owner want to discredit the brand and tell the truth and that if you go out in a F7 you will get structural damage?

My cousin had a 34 and yes he did have trouble with the Volvo Engine but I consider that's a given for most Volvo engined boats. Replaced FOC by Opal though and yes he did have to get the doors shaved/rehung/adjusted, again FOC but otherwise had two years happy sailing in her.

I do expect problems with all production boats and can quote equivalent teething problems from my experiences with both Dufour & Jeanneau but are Bavs now so much cheaper than the other AWB's that it has left them structurally weak and inadequate for say a F7?

To ensure we get a balanced picture are there owners (of new or nearly new Bavs) that have been out in bad weather and can give the result or are they all either only F3/4 sailors or dead?

I remember recently looking at the Jeanneau v moody 49 test and the 2x price of the moody was difficult to justify let alone the 3x price of the Oyster but is the actual cost resulting in the AWB not being as good or so bad that it is structurally unsuitable for a F7/8?

Regarding the Ben 380 comment read the maib report. Yes a very poor AVS (that I note have been improved on in recent designs) aggrevated by mast radar and other factors. I would agree with all the critics of AWB's that they do slam in a sea, are less able to beat off a lee shore and probably require better seamanship in really bad conditions but as Jimi pointed out they are selling well and westerlies/contessa's etc are effectively no more.