Practical Boat Owner - January 2016

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any moons ago I wore a suit and worked in the City (believe it or not),
early 1970s as the overseas department manager in a firm of Lloyds insurance brokers. At the ending up in the
time, the mythical Jim Slater started hogging the financial headlines. Everything about him seemed exciting (unlike my job)
and he became a City guru. He even wrote a book about how it should be done, so I read it –

aiming to pick up a few useful hints – and was struck by one phrase along the lines of ‘the thing makers are the fools.’ That settles it, I

thought: I must follow Jim’s advice and avoid being a ‘thing maker’.astray and I soon found myself far But the best intentions can go

from the City, based at an Essex factory up Rochford Creek. Making things. Boat things. And very satisfying it was too, albeit without

the financial rewards of rising through the ranks in the City. And I got to attend all the European boat shows – either as an exhibitor or as a visitor in search of new trends. My designer friend David Thomas called this ‘research’. I preferred to call it ‘nicking good ideas’.

as Bénéteau, Jeanneau, Dehler and Dufour, I often wandered over to the stand of a little-known Surrounded by rising stars such

German firm that built solid, timber-laden, hand-crafted yachts in the Scandinavian idiom. Bavaria was its name. Founder Winfried

Herrmann started his career working as a vacuum cleaner salesman, then he changed tack in the late ’60s and set up

Fensterfabrik HeHa-Plast to make windows and doors on an industrial scale. He also sailed as a hobby, subsequently setting up a

separate division in his window empire to build boats. Thus, in 1978, Bavaria Yachtbau was born. ‘Never make your hobby your

business,’ I was once advised – and someone else told me the only way to make a small fortune out of boatbuilding was to start with a

large one. However, Herrmann eventually put this myth firmly to bed. After a serious hiccup in the early 1980s when the window

business went bust – dragging Bavaria down with it – yacht dealer Josef Meltl came to the rescue, helping to refinance the boatbuilder

The founder of Bavaria Yachtbau, Winnfried Herrmann

Boats

ABOUT THE AUTHORPeter K Poland crossed the Atlantic in a 7.6m (25ft) Wind Elf in 1968 and later spent 30

years as co-owner of Hunter Boats. He is now a freelance journalist.

The

Bavaria

Peter K Poland outlines the story

company, looking at key models in development of the Bavaria

the firm’s boatbuilding history