Design Well engineered
Bavaria Yachts revolutionised theway boatswere built 45 years agowhen the brand was launched. Today that market-leading innovation continues
H
aving pioneered modern series production of boats 45 years ago, Bavaria Yachts is a good example for looking at the state of boat production today.
When Winfried Herrmann, who at the time was fabricating windows on an industrial scale, began making boats by founding Bavaria Yachts in 1978, he more or less revolutionised the market for sailing boats – and the way in which they were built. In stark contrast to other yards at that
time, Hermann did not come from a background of boatbuilding. Instead, when planning his new boat production facility, he started with a clean sheet of paper and applied industrial principles in making his boats, rather than the standards of traditional boatbuilding. His boats were modern and well designed, but also built very efficiently and could be sold to the customer at a much lower price than those of the competition. In fact, Hermann opened an entirely new chapter in modern yacht production with his approach. This was also made possible because he was arguably the first to fully realise the potential and possibilities of GRP in large scale boat production. Many things have changed since then
and Bavaria Yachts itself has come a very long way, but the main principles remain. Herrmann was the first to apply assembly-
60 SEAHORSE
line production to boatbuilding; his purpose-built boat factory was clean and efficient. And so it has remained. The boats are moved on the line from one station to the next as they grow towards completion, from the bare hull coming out of the lamination hall at one end to the finished yacht at the other. At each station, a team of experts do one job, and one only. When, say, the plumbers have installed the water system, for example, the boat moves on to the electricians who will do all the wiring, after which it moves on to the next station where the main components of the furniture are put into place, and so on. Between each step is a first quality control check, as one team hands the boat over to the next. ‘We have very
the other hand, the opportunities that are offered by the developing build technology make it possible to produce with much reduced waste, for example, again making the entire process more effective.’ Another point is, that at Bavaria Yachts,
the entire process of building a boat is done within the yard, which includes laminating the hulls and decks. From the first pot of resin to the finished yacht, all is done in Giebelstadt. There is no question of having to truck the bare hulls from one facility to the other, which in some other cases is halfway across Europe. But how does this effect the overall
much increased the efficiency in production’, says COO Norbert Leifeld. ‘Thirty years ago, Bavaria Yachts was very innovative and we have remained so until today, this leap in efficiency is only one example. As our product portfolio changes so do countless details in production. With the increased complexity of modern and larger yachts, the principle of design for manufacture is becoming ever more important. On
‘In terms of quality series production is superior to single unit production’
build quality of the boats? A popular perception is that this sort of series production is cheap and thus inferior. David Krebelder, head of production at Bavaria Yachts, obviously has a very different take on this. ‘On the contrary. Since
we do each building step 10 times a day, it is reproducible and thus also more process-reliable,’ he says. ‘In terms of quality, series production is always superior to single-unit production. With the 300th boat, all problems are known and eliminated and we can achieve much higher quality. Cheaper in price per boat compared with single-unit production,
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