Made in Germany
France is often seen as the powerhouse of innovation in the sailing world. However, Germany has long been responsible for some of the biggest brands in the industry.
Bavaria was among the first European boatbuilders to invest heavily in creating the capacity to build yachts on a true production line basis. As a result its boats are competitively priced, both new and on the second-hand market, and are of a generally consistent quality.
In the late 1990s I visited both the Bavaria and Westerly factories. At the time the latter was still fitting out boats in a time-consuming traditional fashion – while I was on site a team of six carpenters was working with jigsaws inside a boat, which already had the deck fitted.
By contrast, the German company had invested heavily in slick production engineering processes. All furniture was cut using CNC machines, before passing through automated spray booths. It was then put together into sub assemblies such as galley units, which could be dropped into the hull and bonded in place before fitting the deck. This is a much faster way to build a boat and every one is the same, which makes for easier quality control. It’s the difference between the hand built cars of 40 years ago and today’s vehicles that are assembled by robots and are much more reliable.
Within a few years of my first visit Bavaria was using lasers to quickly and accurately align keels. This again speeded up production, while simultaneously improving quality.
Sailing in Germany
Germany offers a
