I am tempted by the price-size ratio of the Bavaria range, epecially the 42. Various articles list it as an off-shore cruiser. Is this an under-statement? Does anybody have heavy weather experience with any size of Bavaria? 42? Also there seem to be very few available test reports. Can anybody direct me to non-biased tests available on the web? Many thanks Lion
Bavaria - Heavy weather sailing?
- Thread starter Lion
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Web-based test reviews
There is a list of reviews of most popular Bavarias on the Bavaria Yacht Owners website. There are also several stories, or links to owners sites posted with some info on ocean sailing experiences. If you buy one, please join the Owners Association - no charge to owners.
There is a list of reviews of most popular Bavarias on the Bavaria Yacht Owners website. There are also several stories, or links to owners sites posted with some info on ocean sailing experiences. If you buy one, please join the Owners Association - no charge to owners.
Bavaria 44 across Bass Straight
In December 2002 the Bavaria 44 Lazy Jack had a testing crossing of Bass Straight,we had prepared the boat for heavy weather as i have previously seen Bass Straight pretty ugly.The Bavaria as delivered is in coastal mode so we added some more offshore features.Running backstays and inner forestay to beef up rig,Boombrake preventer to control the boom when jibing and reefing,third reef point fitted to sail and lines through boom. No.3 headsail with fwd sheeting,secondary cockpit winches,extra bilge pumps,harness points,resealed hatches,Dodger,Targa some fishing gear,Life raft,safety gear,zodiac,engine spares,tools and more tools.So finally we were ready. Left Sydney in good northery winds so easy run to Eden the jump off point for Tasmania.Once in Eden time was short so we grabed a small weather window,SE 15 for first twelve hours so resonable progress,swung to NE and started to build,before long we were running in 45knots of Southern Ocean Wind,the 44 ran down 5-6m waves with no problems as we were down to third reef and10% of our No.3 and doing 10 - 14 Knots,we pushed hard all nigjht and felt good about the innerfore stay and runners,we kept pushing the boat hard even adding a few rpm from volvo to keep the pace up to 10knots.Why push so hard ? we had 55knots of SW predicted the next day and 5m sweels into 55k from Antarctica did not seam appealing,We made the entrance to Wine Glass Bay about 1 hour before change hit so a fast passage. Conclusions-By having a fast light yacht we were able to sail away from weater that would have caught a slower one and boat has the ability to sail off lee shores,we if we were caught out,not shore like all fast planning yachts i would want to smash to windward for weeks i think she would do it,the Bavarias are tender and must be reefed early and deeply after which they handle well.Did we break anything?Suprisingly no,a few little hatch leaks fixed by removal and reseal,steering chain retension,top rudder bearing housing retension,but nothing that a bit of service time didnt fix,glad we did the afore mentioned upgrades as they proved essential.
In December 2002 the Bavaria 44 Lazy Jack had a testing crossing of Bass Straight,we had prepared the boat for heavy weather as i have previously seen Bass Straight pretty ugly.The Bavaria as delivered is in coastal mode so we added some more offshore features.Running backstays and inner forestay to beef up rig,Boombrake preventer to control the boom when jibing and reefing,third reef point fitted to sail and lines through boom. No.3 headsail with fwd sheeting,secondary cockpit winches,extra bilge pumps,harness points,resealed hatches,Dodger,Targa some fishing gear,Life raft,safety gear,zodiac,engine spares,tools and more tools.So finally we were ready. Left Sydney in good northery winds so easy run to Eden the jump off point for Tasmania.Once in Eden time was short so we grabed a small weather window,SE 15 for first twelve hours so resonable progress,swung to NE and started to build,before long we were running in 45knots of Southern Ocean Wind,the 44 ran down 5-6m waves with no problems as we were down to third reef and10% of our No.3 and doing 10 - 14 Knots,we pushed hard all nigjht and felt good about the innerfore stay and runners,we kept pushing the boat hard even adding a few rpm from volvo to keep the pace up to 10knots.Why push so hard ? we had 55knots of SW predicted the next day and 5m sweels into 55k from Antarctica did not seam appealing,We made the entrance to Wine Glass Bay about 1 hour before change hit so a fast passage. Conclusions-By having a fast light yacht we were able to sail away from weater that would have caught a slower one and boat has the ability to sail off lee shores,we if we were caught out,not shore like all fast planning yachts i would want to smash to windward for weeks i think she would do it,the Bavarias are tender and must be reefed early and deeply after which they handle well.Did we break anything?Suprisingly no,a few little hatch leaks fixed by removal and reseal,steering chain retension,top rudder bearing housing retension,but nothing that a bit of service time didnt fix,glad we did the afore mentioned upgrades as they proved essential.
Heavy weather Bavaria
Hello Lion, We have a Bavaria 37 and sailed into a Taiphoon 500 miles S/E of Sri Lanka. Or trip took nearly three weeks. Much of that was in winds of 35 kts or over. At the height of the storm I estimated the wind to be over 80 kts. My wind instruments went unreliable at 64 Kts, the last steady observation I had. After that all hell broke loose. We were knocked over onto our beam ends twice within a few minutes. I blame that on too much windage aft, around the cockpit. We had weather cloths around the cockpit, attached to the aft pulpit and the life lines. That all got blowwn off by wind and waves. We took about 40 Gals' of wather into the stbd locker, otherwise no damage. Well almost. I poked the upper sail batten through the batten pocket on the main. But that's about it. The key to downwind sailing was, to keep the speed down to 4.3 kts exactly. Anything faster and she would fall of the waves witha horrendous bang; any slower and we would get clobbered by the overtaking, braking waves. All in all, the boat behaved much better than we did. My wife was thrown into the chart table and winded (No broken bones), I was knocked out of the cockpit by a pooping wave.It was a rough trip. All the other boats that came after us were also caught in the same storm. One ketch lost its rig and limped back to Gan, in the Maldives. Everybody else made it to Langkawi in more or less one piece. A single hander on a Tahiti ketch had all of his sails blown out. Our little Bavaria 37 had a small problem with the rudder, that's about it. Is she an offshore boat? Well, ask me again in September 06 after our North Pacific Passage from Japan tp Vancouver. Cheers, Joe
Hello Lion, We have a Bavaria 37 and sailed into a Taiphoon 500 miles S/E of Sri Lanka. Or trip took nearly three weeks. Much of that was in winds of 35 kts or over. At the height of the storm I estimated the wind to be over 80 kts. My wind instruments went unreliable at 64 Kts, the last steady observation I had. After that all hell broke loose. We were knocked over onto our beam ends twice within a few minutes. I blame that on too much windage aft, around the cockpit. We had weather cloths around the cockpit, attached to the aft pulpit and the life lines. That all got blowwn off by wind and waves. We took about 40 Gals' of wather into the stbd locker, otherwise no damage. Well almost. I poked the upper sail batten through the batten pocket on the main. But that's about it. The key to downwind sailing was, to keep the speed down to 4.3 kts exactly. Anything faster and she would fall of the waves witha horrendous bang; any slower and we would get clobbered by the overtaking, braking waves. All in all, the boat behaved much better than we did. My wife was thrown into the chart table and winded (No broken bones), I was knocked out of the cockpit by a pooping wave.It was a rough trip. All the other boats that came after us were also caught in the same storm. One ketch lost its rig and limped back to Gan, in the Maldives. Everybody else made it to Langkawi in more or less one piece. A single hander on a Tahiti ketch had all of his sails blown out. Our little Bavaria 37 had a small problem with the rudder, that's about it. Is she an offshore boat? Well, ask me again in September 06 after our North Pacific Passage from Japan tp Vancouver. Cheers, Joe
1400 nm with Bavaria 42, 2005 Sept.
I bought new Bav42Cru. Sept, 2005. I and my family we sailed from Isola, Slovenia to Cesme, Turkey home port and some short trips around Cesme and Chios (Gr) island. Before this boat I had 1982 Dufour 12000ct, 45 feet, Deck House ketch rig boat for 11 years. First few days, I always compared B42 against my old Dufour. But, now, I love this new boat. We had force 6-8 East winds when we sailed from Dubrovnic to Corfu for 28-30 hours. The boat was very confident and fast. If I have to say at least one critism was furniture noise at big broken waves. When I asked this subject to dealer in Turkey, He said me that noise will be reduce by time. I hope so. Maybe the second critism would be at the motoring against to high broken waves is uncomfortable because of boat's flat bottom. My old boat bottom was like "S" which was slower but more comfortable. Also, I am very consider with the speed at low winds and B42 pleased me very much after heavy dufour. If you buy this boat with high-tech type rolling sails and trim well, she is suprisingly nice fast. (by the way sorry for my poor tarzan English
) Best wishes.
I bought new Bav42Cru. Sept, 2005. I and my family we sailed from Isola, Slovenia to Cesme, Turkey home port and some short trips around Cesme and Chios (Gr) island. Before this boat I had 1982 Dufour 12000ct, 45 feet, Deck House ketch rig boat for 11 years. First few days, I always compared B42 against my old Dufour. But, now, I love this new boat. We had force 6-8 East winds when we sailed from Dubrovnic to Corfu for 28-30 hours. The boat was very confident and fast. If I have to say at least one critism was furniture noise at big broken waves. When I asked this subject to dealer in Turkey, He said me that noise will be reduce by time. I hope so. Maybe the second critism would be at the motoring against to high broken waves is uncomfortable because of boat's flat bottom. My old boat bottom was like "S" which was slower but more comfortable. Also, I am very consider with the speed at low winds and B42 pleased me very much after heavy dufour. If you buy this boat with high-tech type rolling sails and trim well, she is suprisingly nice fast. (by the way sorry for my poor tarzan English
) Best wishes.- Status