Made in Germany
Having left university with a degree in modern languages, I followed the example of many of my contemporaries. I went to work in the City. Those who stuck to the financial sector for the rest of their careers – whether in the UK or abroad – are now wealthy enough to pour large sums into our old college’s coffers.
But not me. After about 18 months, a university chum and I pooled our savings, left our jobs and bought a wooden 25ft yacht. Then we set sail for the West Indies. But after a memorable month in Barbados, I had to hitch a lift home on a steamer because of family problems back in the UK. End of adventure and back to a Lloyds broker: where I ended up as manager of the overseas department.
The lure of yachts was still strong, however. So despite City guru Jim Slater’s alleged opinion that ‘the thing makers are the fools’, I walked out of the city and became… a maker of things. Boat things.
Still, my modern languages were useful at the European boat shows I attended as an exhibitor, or visited to research new ideas and see what innovations were worth ‘borrowing’.
Hobby turned business
It was on one such expedition that I came across a then little known German firm that built solid, hand-crafted yachts; very much in the Scandinavian idiom. These elegant yachts came from the pen of German designer Axel Mohnhaupt between 1981 and 1993. The yachts were called Bavarias.
Founder Winfried Herrmann started work as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Then in the late 1960s he set up Fensterfabrik Heha-Plast, manufacturing windows and doors on an industrial scale. As a hobby he also sailed; then started a separate division in his window empire to build boats. Thus, in 1978, Bavaria Yachtbau was born. ‘Never make your hobby your business,’ I was once advised; ‘the only way to make a small fortune out of boat building is to start with a big one.’ But Herrmann eventually proved this wrong.
In the early 1980s the window business went under – dragging Bavaria down with it – but yacht dealer Josef Meltl came to the rescue
