Bavaria or Hunter Bashing

[Island Time O25]

Originally Posted by hoppy

Maybe not for you, but it was pretty stressful for a few people on here at the time


When I was looking for a boat, I looked at a few Bavaria's and even chartered a B39 for a few days. What struck me most about it was the cheap and nasty cabinetry which in some cases was flimsy laminated metal doors around the nave table. The quality reminded me of the interior of an American car.

The charter skipper I was with was telling me stories of a Bavaria he was delivery flexing a lot.

I call it "IKEA" interior. Hanses are also notorius for this. But the main culprit ifor this trend I think are the consumers themselves. They have been deluded (self deluded or via marketing) into thinking "bigger is better" and instead of say getting a 32-34 footer from a quality manufacturer they are suckered into getting a 45 Hanse for the same $$. This is the same mentality that allows for proliferation of those "all you can eat" buffets where one pigs out on crap instead of for the same cost to have just a few tasty items at a decent restaurant.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by smackdaddy

I met a guy at the boatyard who had a friend whose cousin knew a guy who sailed a 40' catamaran with his family. One day, in 20 knots of breeze, they inadvertently flipped the thing...right into an active volcano. It was horrible.

Goes to show what can happen on those things if you're not reefed way down.

It was good to 20kts of wind? Must have been one of those heavy condo cats.

Our reefing lines lead through the dock cleats.

Mark

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by cwyckham

Well, I don't like modern Hunters, and my wife feels the same way. No, we're not rude enough to walk up to a Hunter owner and tell them we don't like their pride and joy, but we certainly would never buy one.

It isn't because they're cheaper than our boat (they're not, we have a 30 year old boat), and it isn't because we think they'll fall apart.

The main problem is that they look ugly as hell. They have this enormous fluffy marshmallow look to them due to the very large volume required for the living compartment. They're wide and they have massive freeboard.

A secondary problem is the B&K rig. It's not that I think it'll fall over, it's that I like to be able to let my main out on a run.

I like to sail and I believe that modern Hunters are optimized for the dock and the anchor. There's nothing wrong with that since that's really important to a lot of people, it's just not our thing.

Note: I don't have anything against the older Hunters from the 80s before they got all bloated. It's not a brand thing as much as a styling and trade-off thing.

Ding! You hit the nail on the head, there. That's the reason a lot of people don't like modern Hunters. Nothing to do with construction details, it's the fact they are ugly. Just like cats, which to me have all the grace and flowing lines of a fridge.

A sailboat should be a thing of beauty!

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by DotDun

I get the same crap....they'll be sitting on my boat enjoying a cocktail and tell me how they would never be on a catamaran in 'blue water'.....hilarious actually!

I have to say boys that if that is true and I accept what you say it sure shows how far sailing and respecting other peoples choices have slipped over the years since we were doing this full time. I honestly have never heard any sailor talk that way, we may have joked a bit but even then we were very careful because its a bit like telling the guy his wife is ugly.

In the bigger picture who cares what someone else sails, I certainly don't and I have all kinds of bias's built up over the years and some times I am opinionated about it but only in a general way not directly to another sailor and his boat.

For the type of sailing most cruisers are doing these days multi hulls are sure a good choice but your pockets need to be a bit deeper.

[colemj]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

A sailboat should be a thing of beauty!

To just you personally?

What other things in the world should be passed by you for esthetic approval?

Mark

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by avb3

I used to love winter, and miss cross country skiing, which I did a lot with my kids and grandkids. I got a bit in before I left mid December.

About 4-5 years ago there was a particular bad series of snow falls. My house was on a corner lot, with two driveways and 165 feet of sidewalk fronting it. When I had to shovel the third time in one day, that was the catalyst to me saying enough is enough. I started looking around for places which had good weather, good sailing infrastructure and reasonable sailing variety, and chose the Tampa region. It helped that property was, and still is actually, cheap as heck here compared to Alberta. I won't tell you what I paid for my condo, but suffice it to say virtually any decent sailboat is much more.



The one thing one has to get used to is the skinny water here. I refer it as "touch and go" keel sailing... yes, I have hit bottom a few times, and tow insurance is a must. So far I have been lucky and have always managed to get myself off the bottom, and that it is soft.

I can understand you sailing the south Pacific, but the north?? Up the west coast to Alaska, or along the Aleutians also? Where in the Caribbean are you now?

Never sailed to Alaska or the Aleutians as my wife will not go anywhere that doesn't grow palm trees. North Pacific as in the Marshall Islands and Midway Island and of course Hawaii more often than I can remember.

[smackdaddy]

Originally Posted by bobnlesley

Hail to the arm chair sailor and all their crap as you're the ones that make this forum funny as hell.

I've got to agree with that!

We sail a very 'traditional' heavy displacement, long keeled yacht and from time to time make extended offshore passages; would I do that in a Hunter, Bavaria or similar? No, but that's a personal choice; when crossing an ocean, to paraphrase Lance Armstrong (is that allowed nowadays?) "it's not about the boat." Crews break, not boats and even when you get a mechanical failure, oftentimes that'll have come about because the crew have already broken or at least cracked and not been doing their part of the job.

I also believe that for 99.9% of sailors, a Ben/Jen/Bav-Hunter is a far better bet than something like ours; we liveaboard/sail fulltime and there are probably no more than half-a-dozen days in the year when I think we're in the better/superior boat; if you excluded the offshore passages, I doubt there'd be any.

The comments invariably revolve around 'What about when it's blowing a gale out at sea?' Well IMO, with a decent anchor or set of dock-lines,the Ben/Jen/Bav-Hunter will snug down just as well as ours does and the crew will have got it reversed more easily/quickly into a tighter and better sheltered spot in the marina than I could possibly manage too! Long-term/Livaboard Cruisers rarely poke their heads outside a secure harbour/anchorage when there are any 'Greens' showing up on Passageweather (we don't need to - we can go tomorrow or next week) and with modern weather forecasting and access/availability of same, you've got to be very unlucky, or careless to get a genuine battering - not the yacht-club bar fly stories where memory turns a F5 beat to windward into half a hurricane, I mean a 'real' battering! - unless you're on an extended (more than 48-72 hours) passage, with nowhere to bail-out. So as 99.9% of sailors never make one of those, why not sail on a spacious, modern yacht, with hull/keel shape and engine that allow you to manoeuvre easily in the 21st century's crowded harbours and marinas?

In our years cruising both the Mediterranean and Caribbean, I have undoubtedly seen more Ben/Jen/Bav-Hunters get 'broken' than I have of the heavier displacement, traditional yachts, but that's only logical as it's once again down to the crews not the boats:
We've often sat in a well sheltered anchorage whilst it blew a hooley for days or even weeks and during that time, only the occasional liveaboard boats moves in or out of the bay; we've got the time to wait out the weather. However, the Ben/Jen/Bav-Hunter Charterboats are crewed by people on much tighter time schedules, so they head out and 'give it a go'. Those boats are not ultimately as 'tough' as the older/heavier built vessels and whilst it's unfair to suggest (as we often hear) that they're not as good at sailing than the liveaboards - I know that most'll be a sight better than we are - they'll rarely have the experience/knowledge of the particular boat that they're sailing this week as well as we do; as a result, 'mistakes' are more likely to be made and they come back damaged - you can't blame the boat for the crew's errors.

Very good post, Bob. Thanks.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

Ding! You hit the nail on the head, there. That's the reason a lot of people don't like modern Hunters. Nothing to do with construction details, it's the fact they are ugly. Just like cats, which to me have all the grace and flowing lines of a fridge.

A sailboat should be a thing of beauty!

God when you let loose you go for it. I don't know what you sail and I don't want to know but I am sure you have heard the expression "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder" One reason there are so many choices is that we all have different opinions. Some people forgo beauty for practicality and there is nothing wrong with that. Beauty is only good when things are working. I have had some real pretty boats over the years that turned ugly on me when they started to eat my check book alive!

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by colemj

To just you personally?

What other things in the world should be passed by you for esthetic approval?

Mark

Look at it this way, if we are lucky to get older we all lose our physical beauty and if that is how we judge objects and each other its going to be a shallow and lonely existence.

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by robert sailor

God when you let loose you go for it. I don't know what you sail and I don't want to know but I am sure you have heard the expression "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder" One reason there are so many choices is that we all have different opinions. Some people forgo beauty for practicality and there is nothing wrong with that. Beauty is only good when things are working. I have had some real pretty boats over the years that turned ugly on me when they started to eat my check book alive!

A position I have some sympathy for, and will have an awful lot more sympathy for, some time in March, when I will have just spent a week varnishing.

[DotDun]

Originally Posted by smackdaddy

I met a guy at the boatyard who had a friend whose cousin knew a guy who sailed a 40' catamaran with his family. One day, in 20 knots of breeze, they inadvertently flipped the thing...right into an active volcano. It was horrible.

Goes to show what can happen on those things if you're not reefed way down.

Originally Posted by colemj

It was good to 20kts of wind? Must have been one of those heavy condo cats.

Our reefing lines lead through the dock cleats.

Mark

Bad seamanship! Everyone knows a cat should be motoring with bare poles with wind over 12kts!

A friend overhead a monohull salesman say that next year the French cats were going to start using soy/wheat based foam core! Yep! The same as the packing peanuts that melt when they get wet!!!

[robert sailor]

I think I have learned what caused these two brands to get a bit of a rep with the internet crowd, that's all I was interested in. I'm back at full time sailing after a 13 year holiday and I knew nothing about Bavaria's and Hunters were never really bashed to the same extent back then so a lot of this stuff was news to me. We also heard from some of the multi guys and I have to admit that I never saw one offshore 15 years ago even though I knew some were but now they seem to be everywhere. I know nothing about the brands of these boats but I'm sure there is a brand or two that also gets bashed because as humans we seem to get a certain amount of delight in putting others down to make ourselves feel better. Thanks for all the input, lets crash this thread and move back to some of the ones that take bashing to a form of art.

[MarkSF]

Originally Posted by colemj

To just you personally?

What other things in the world should be passed by you for esthetic approval?

Mark

This implies that beauty is entirely subjective. This is not the case.

A Jaguar XKE is better looking than a Pontiac Aztec.
A pastoral landscape is better than a garbage dump.
The Mona Lisa is better than graffiti.
Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto beats the clamour of Universal 3-cylinder diesel.

These things are fundamentally true, not in the eye of the beholder.

[robert sailor]

Originally Posted by MarkSF

This implies that beauty is entirely subjective. This is not the case.

A Jaguar XKE is better looking than a Pontiac Aztec.
A pastoral landscape is better than a garbage dump.
The Mona Lisa is better than graffiti.
Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto beats the clamour of Universal 3-cylinder diesel.

These things are fundamentally true, not in the eye of the beholder.

I'll respond to your first example, yes the XKE is a very pretty car but having had one in the family I can tell you that it was mechanically, let me be nice here, less than desirable, more or less like a trophy wife. The Aztec does take some getting used to as far as appearance but even though it was at best a middle of the road car it was much higher in mechanical quality than that old Jag. I personally love old Jag's but you either need to be extremely well skilled in making repairs or be on a first named basis with your local mechanic if you are going to do anything other than Sunday driving with it. So to sum up, yes the Jag is beautiful and no it is not very practical while the Aztec is not pretty but is practical. If I have to make a choice for sailing offshore I will choose practical every time although my first choice would be both pretty and practical.

[sailorboy1]

I feel my Hunter is a nice looking boat and have had many others comment the same (with no prompting). So just making some wild all encompassing statement that all Hunters are not nice looking is just another example of the sport of boat bashing.