Almost too good to be true: no layout, all jobs and all factories will be maintained. After a bankruptcy and difficult negotiations with several interested parties it was a Berlin investment group that made the deal (CMP). Bavaria is not only back but it is German again.
They went down after having managed to modernize most of its fleet but without time to produce, much less sell the boats. The new line of C boats (45, 50, 57 and 65) is among the most interesting offers on the market and probably they will be one of the best deals on next Dusseldorf boat show since they have to take an aggressive price policy to survive, at least till production returns to normal figures.
I saw the new C-line at last Dusseldorf boat show and I liked what I saw.
http://interestingsailboats.blogspot.com/2017/12/all-about-beautiful-new-bavaria-c45.html
Here a C45 detailed video test by the sailing magazine yacht: they are also positive about the boat.
Hei Paolo, glad to hear from you again. I´ve seen the video on the C45, and although I don´t speak german and despite the poor automatic translation I could grasp that the review was far from good (just check the comments below in youtube). The boat looks nice, yes, its a pretty one to see, but then there is a lot of criticism about many details in the boat and how poorly they perform. Just see the front cover of the magazine at the end of the video with a Bavaria C45 picture and the headline "Comeback or sinking?"; it says it all.
ReplyDeleteMaybe you are right but it is dificult to evaluate. This is a new tester and different testers judge things differently. I would have liked this guy to have done the test on the new jeanneau 410 or the Oceanis 46.1 to have a reference.
DeleteObviously the boat tested was badly finished but the things he mentions are mostly details that have to do with that (like the doors not having fixing points). A boat made in haste for delivery by a bankrupt shipyard.
The images that show the boat sailing give me a good feeling about the boat performance. The boat seats well on the water and the polar speeds are quite impressive (in what regards design).
He makes some comments regarding a poor speed close upwind but when I looked at the mainsail I saw a so badly tuned sail that I thought that the guy did not know how to sail. Then I noticed that the boomvang was all in and that the sail could not be pulled more down. That means a very badly cut sail that does not allow a proper shape when going upwind (a lot of wind is spilled).
He mentions that the laminated is good but fail to mention anything about the boat structure that is incomparably better than on the other Bavarias or even on all other main production boats.
Just compare those keel bolts with the ones of other Bavaria of the same size and you will notice a big improvement and that is not even the bigger difference, contrary to the previous boats this one has an integrated boat structure and not only a grid on the bottom making for a much stronger and stiffer boat.
But you are right, this is an aggressive sail test (I asked my wife to translate it to me), maybe too aggressive since this is not normally the tone on the magazine and a bit unfair because this guy is not the one that makes testing on other big production cruisers and we cannot really compare. Surely he would be also aggressive regarding other brands.
I guess we need another test on a boat from the C-line on a properly finished boat and done by one of the main testers from the magazine to have a more complete idea of the value of the new line of Bavarias.