How is the marine business going? Always a difficult one to answer – or perhaps it just hasn’t been a very enjoyable question to have to deal with truthfully over the last few years. But a tangible sign that times may be changing comes with news that Bavaria sold over 100 boats during the nine days of the Dusseldorf Boatshow. It makes for a positive start to the year, with the Germans claiming this as a new sales record for a boat show.
And in a boost for the yachting market, over 70 of these sales were for yachts. Just rewards perhaps for the German yard’s significant recent investment, which has resulted in 10 new sailing boat models out in the last 15 months. Despite many manufacturers seeing the majority of activity in larger sized models, it is also interesting to note the most popular size for Bavaria was a more approachable one -19 of the Bavaria 37 sold during the ‘boot’ exhibition. Admittedly a high percentage of these will have been sold into the charter market however (of the near 100 of the Bavaria 46 that have sold since September 2013 for example, around 80% is to charter apparently).

 Bavaria also used the show to launch their ultra affordable new ‘Easy 9.7′. This is an entry level 33 footer which puts price first – an incredible starting price of below €50k (ex VAT) in fact! For this sum it comes without the likes of doors or a stove, but affordable trim packages are offered. With Hanse also revamping their Varianta range with a new 37 (from €75k) and revised 44 (from €98k), the big German yards are obviously pushing economic entry-level yachts this year.
See our April issue for more on these and a host of new models for 2014 from Dusseldorf.

It’s nice to see report some positives for the mainstream production yacht market. With news that last year’s warm summer helped increase boating activities in the UK by 23%, fingers’ crossed the monsoons soon give way to allow a fine Spring.