Bluewater cruiserr

J&J designed this new Bavaria model and to my eye it looks like a direct attack on our current crop of Euro-produced cruising boats. It's a handsome boat in profile, despite the generous freeboard. I think the prominent feature stripe will help hide that freeboard on the finished product.

The hull shows a very full, suppository-like shape in plan view. Plan view is designer talk for looking down on the boat. The stern is broad and to my eye the bow looks puffed out. Of course this fullness buys interior volume and can be very helpful when it is present at berth top heights or counter heights. Unfortunately fullness in the topsides, while providing some additional stability, can also be slow. For instance, in order to keep the half-angle of entry low for a fine entry and good performance on the wind, a high performance boat today might have a half-angle of deck plan as low as 14 degrees. This same angle on the Bavaria is 23 degrees. This just means that the Bavaria will not exactly knife its way to weather. On the other hand, when you bear off onto a reach the fullness forward can add to your hull speed.

With an L/B of 3.04 this design can be considered quite beamy. The profile shows a very normal distribution of volume with short ends for a D/L of 184. You can choose from standard draft at 5 feet, 1 inch or deep at 6 feet, 5 inches.

The 36 comes in two layouts. You can have three staterooms with mirror image, double berth staterooms aft with the head forward, or you can have two staterooms with one stateroom aft with the head aft on the starboard side. If you go with two staterooms aft and the head moved forward, the available space for the forward stateroom is impacted and eats up part of the lazaretto. The galley, nav area and dining areas remain the same for both versions.

To my eye the dual stateroom version is the most appealing as it preserves the lazarette and makes the forward stateroom much bigger. The galley is on the small side with a "cooling box" adjacent to the sinks that I think would be inadequate. Of course, in this case, there would be no way of expanding the cooling box without sacrificing room in the aft stateroom or the settee area, so this compromise seems to be balanced. The dining table is shown as stopping about four inches short of the edge of the settee. I like to see table edges lap the settee edges by three inches. I have no photos of this interior but in the drawings there are no surprises here. It's a standard layout meant to appeal to those wanting a charter boat or a family cruiser.

The deck plan shows the transom opens up so you walk from the cockpit to the swim step. The cockpit seats are long enough to stretch out on and are nipped away at the wheel to allow for a large diameter wheel. There is an anchor locker forward.

The rig is a fractional type with midboom sheeting and swept spreaders. I don't have I, J, E and P so I can't give you a SA/D but it looks to me to be in the 18 to 19 range.

This category of boat has become very popular. If you are looking for a 36-footer with a lot of accommodations you will have several well-known builders to choose from. The Bavarias are built in Germany. My impression of the Bavarias based upon those I have seen is that they are nicely detailed boats that always appear to be very well styled.