The boats

A sluggish boat teaches you nothing: trim the sails any old way and she sails just the same. On a Match, poor trim shows up at once on the log and you feel it on the helm. That is what makes progress fast, even for a beginner.

The Bavaria Matches belong to the cruiser-racer family: more sail area, a deeper keel, a larger cockpit designed for manoeuvring, more complete deck hardware (bigger winches, more trim controls, mainsheet traveller in the cockpit). The interior volume is noticeably smaller than that of a cruiser of the same length; the quality of the fit-out, on the other hand, is the same.

The crew is deliberately kept small: four trainees per boat, five on Perseus or for a group booking together. Everyone helms, everyone handles the boat, nobody just watches.

No roller furling on board: each boat carries several headsails, one for each wind strength, so we can go out in very varied conditions — from a light breeze to the solid forty knots that Brittany sometimes serves up without warning.

Our boats date from 2004. In the mid-2000s, yards turned away from quality joinery such as mahogany, which our Bavaria Matches are fitted with.

Unlike (coastal) cruising yachts, our boats have a very stiff structure — a stainless-steel frame, similar to that of X-Yachts — that keeps flexing to a minimum, even in tough conditions (close-hauled in a rough sea). This stiffness makes for performance, and also means the boats age well.

When the Match range was launched, Bavaria had under-dimensioned the keel attachment on the 38 and 42 Match. After a serious incident, and without acknowledging that there was a problem, Bavaria had oversized stainless-steel reinforcement plates fitted. There is therefore no perceptible ageing at that point. On Bénéteau's First range, by contrast, this is something that deserves close attention.

Boats with wide hulls — especially wide forward, as is the current trend — and flatter bottoms slam more and punish their structure, all the more so when motoring into the waves. The Bavaria Matches strike an excellent compromise: a fine entry and a rounded forefoot to get through a short chop without slamming too much, then a flatter area around the keel that allows bursts of extra speed: surfing downwind in a swell (our in-house records are over 16 knots).

What our boats don't have, and why:

• No twin rudders: this set-up only makes sense on sporty racing or offshore racing boats; on a coastal cruiser it has almost nothing but drawbacks. So on our boats there are no rudder alignment issues and no complex mechanics.
• No twin wheels: one more complication, which also brings more problems.
• No bow thruster: a needless piece of kit up to 42 feet, which slows the boat down, brings problems of its own and often fails just when you really need it.
• No roller furling: a handy invention, useful for some sailors and some sizes of boat. But when it jams, or when the headsail has been left up in a strong blow, the damage to the partly furled sail is usually serious.

Needless to say, we take great care over the upkeep of our boats, especially the joinery, which does a lot for the quality of life on board.