AMAZING C65: THE BAVARIA BECAME TRULY BEAUTIFUL!!!!

This one is even more elegant than the C45!!!.The hull is slim, with fine entries and no doubt a fast one. Absolutely incredible this turn face from Bavaria. This is without doubt the best looking top of the game among all the big production yachts.

Suddenly Bavaria passed from bland looking yachts to the nicest looking boats among big production builders. Big changes on Bavaria!!! and for the better. Will the Germans follow up? They are known for a conservative taste, well, not so much as the English, but way more conservative than the Italians or French. Maybe they are changing too LOL.

Regarding the new 65 only the boat's transom looks a bit heavy, if compared to the most beautiful yachts around and that's because they chose to locate there an outside galley with a barbecue and a wash basin. At least the looks were lost for practicability and functionality in what regards cruising. 

The interior looks great and funcional too. They even feature two big holding bars on the saloon ceiling, a very unusual feature these days, and a big galley in U that offers a very good working support while sailing, with a very big cooler opening to the saloon.

How they come up with such a great  looking Bavaria out of the blue and so fast? Well, the new Bavaria C65 looks to be a remake of the Salona 60. Nothing wrong with that, the Salona 60 was a beautiful performance cruiser that had never the success that it deserved. Having a hull of a performance cruiser on a big production yacht is just a great idea and Salona is in trouble and not making the big yacht anymore.

Above Salona 60, below Bavaria C65

The Hull was designed by Jason Ker, the IRC magician, the one with more success designing very fast cruiser-racers. This was his first attempt to a true production boat and a very good one. Bavaria seem to have used the hull (even the port hulls are identical) and modified partially the cabin, that maintain the same hatches as on the Salona.

The redesign is very good and the Bavaria, with the exception of the transom, looks even better than the Salona. Maybe we have here a Ker/Cossutti design? or did they ask Ker to revise the design?

The interior has a similar saloon and a similar galley but now more closed and with the big cooler facing the saloon. I would say that it looks even better and that on a boat of this size a more closed galley is justifiable.

They maintained the dinghy garage, closed the transom with an outside galley, modified the cockpit with a very nice two table arrangement, changed the Salona very nice carbon wheel pedestals for a less nicer and massive arrangement, changed the position of the winches to a more comfortable cruising arrangement, with easy access from the steering wheel, and took forward the boom control set up, from the cockpit to over the cabin, using the traditional Bavaria system. Not so efficient but certainly gives the cockpit a much better functionality in what regards cruising and passage.

On top, Salona 60, below B C65

I hope they maintain the building method used by Salona, that was superior to what Bavaria uses, with a galvanized steel frame and a Vacuum infused epoxy based vinylester  completely cored GRP hull reinforced with carbon. Bavaria announced that they will use the Bavaria vacuum infusion technology (VacuTec) and they say "carbon fiber was used here" in a vague way.

Probably it means that the hull has some carbon reinforcements but they don't say if the hull is a completely cored one or if they will use core only above waterline (like on other Bavarias), they don't say that epoxy resins or  epoxy based vinylester resins will be used exclusively and nothing is said about the boat structure.

Salona 60

The Salona displaced 25T with a 8 to 8.5T ballast (depending on keel draft) the Bavaria C65 will displace the same but will only have 6.5 to 7T ballast and since the drafts and keel design are similar that means that the Salona 60 was a more powerful sailboat with a better stability. That is normal since the Salona was designed as a performance cruiser while the C65 is pointed to a less performance oriented clientele.

The lesser stiffness has implications on the sail area that is smaller on the Bavaria. With a self tacking jib on both boats, the sail area upwind is 220 to 195 m2 and obviously that reflects on the sail performance, that will be not as great on the Bavaria, but even so better than the one of all other big production top of the line yachts.
Just to give a comparative example the new Dufour 63 weights 24167 kg it has 6.5T ballast (to a smaller draft - 2.8 to 3.5m) and has 175m2 sail area upwind with a genoa (108%) while the Bavaria with a jib has 195, a considerable diference on boats with about the same hull design and beam. The Bavaria is more powerful, it has more sail area and will be faster...and Dufour is known for making fast cruisers.

Who would say: the Bavaria not only the more elegant but also the fastest among its peers! A revolution going on there and one for a good cause: better sailboats. I wish them success on this new approach and may they keep the revolution going on.

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