Bavaria – Project kick-off meeting

I’ve just returned from another trip to Germany. This was my fourth trip to Bavaria this year and sixth in two years! This time I traveled with Patrick Shaughnessy and Chris Cochran to attend a kick-off meeting for yet another project for Bavaria yacht builders in Giebelstadt. This will be our fourth project with them after completing the flagship 55, then the 32 and a 45. The 45 will have its first show in Dusseldorf this coming January. Chris stayed on a few days to help with the final touches on the 45.

Those previous three projects are the “cornerstone” projects which have defined the styling and features for the entire line-up. Now we begin work on our first “derivative” of those three. For our kick-off meeting we assembled some preliminary design ideas and benchmark information of comparable designs from Bavaria’s competitors. The meeting was attended by Bavaria’s Sales, Marketing, in-house design team, as well as Tom Allemeier and Tommy Forsgren from BMW’s Design Works USA. Bavaria’s Klaus Hammen led the discussion which narrowed down the product specifications based on everyone’s input. By the end of an all day meeting we had a well defined direction for the product as well as a schedule by which all teams will work together. This of course was followed by the obligatory group dinner at a traditional Bavarian restaurant featuring my favorite Schweinebraten and Weissbier. Thanks Klaus!

When launched in the early to middle part of next year we will have completed four boats in two years for Bavaria. Considering our level of detail work has been greater for this client than most others, this has constituted a colossal effort from our team. But the exciting thing is that we have had the opportunity to see not just one boat take shape from our designs but soon it will be an entire fleet of related designs - that is quite satisfying.


With each of these projects the coordination becomes smoother and work becomes even more enjoyable. By now we all understand each other’s roles and the cooperation gets better all the time. Since I’ll be the project management lead on this new project I’m hoping it goes at least as well as the last one which Chris led!

Keith Carew