Bavaria 30 Cruiser, Review and Used Buying Guide

The Bavaria 30 Cruiser in brief

The Bavaria 30 Cruiser was the smallest boat in the cruiser series that Bavaria launched in 2005, a family of J&J Design yachts running from 30 to 51 feet. Built at Giebelstadt in Bavaria from 2005 to 2007, it measures 31 feet overall on a 27-foot waterline with a beamy 10 feet 10 inches, and weighs about 9,700 pounds with 2,425 pounds of ballast in the keel bulb. Yachting Monthly gives 523 square feet of sail area.

Bavaria's reputation in the mid-2000s was for offering a lot of boat for the money, sometimes with criticism of detail finish. David Harding of Yachting Monthly, who tested many Bavarias of that era, called the 30 Cruiser perhaps not the most obvious choice for a family cruiser, then concluded that it was a surprisingly good one. Cruising World's judges also looked at it for their 2007 Boat of the Year contest. For a US buyer who wants a well-built, easy 30-footer to cruise a bay or a coast, it deserves a place on the shortlist.

Deep fin, shoal fin or tandem keel

Bavaria offered three keels. The deep bulb fin draws about 6 feet 5 inches, generous for a 30-footer and the best choice for windward work. A shoal bulb fin was also available. The third option, seen on a good number of boats, is the tandem keel, a design descended from Warwick Collins' work in the late 1980s that places two vertical foil sections above a single bulb. It cuts draft to about 4 feet 6 inches, nearly 2 feet less than the deep fin, while promising better performance than a conventional shoal keel.

Owners report the trade-off honestly. One tandem-keel owner told Practical Boat Owner that his boat does not point as well as a fin-keeled sister, but he sails single-handed happily. For the Chesapeake, Florida or the Bahamas, the tandem keel opens far more anchorages, and its rudder is the same depth as on the deep-fin boats.

A forward mast and a mainsheet you cannot reach

The rig is typical of Bavarias of the period. The mast is stepped a long way forward, giving a skinny foretriangle, and the genoa has a moderate overlap with inboard chainplates to keep the sheeting angle narrow. A slightly unusual detail is a set of semi-intermediate shrouds running from the spreader tips to a point midway up the lower mast, presumably to support a fairly tall section with a single set of spreaders.

The mainsheet is the arrangement critics dislike. It runs from mid-boom to deck fittings ahead of the companionway, then to the mast base and back to a winch on the coachroof. That keeps the cockpit clear, but the helmsman cannot dump the sheet in a gust without a crew member. The self-tailing Lewmar 30 primaries, on the other hand, are on the aft coamings within reach of the wheel. The helm is pushed right aft to maximize cockpit space, and the large console molding that carries the instruments also supports the cockpit table, which takes up much of the cockpit.

Below decks, where the 30 Cruiser earns its keep

This is where the boat wins converts. The layout is classic early-2000s: a double forward cabin, a saloon with two straight settees over 6 feet long and a table that drops to make a double, a conventional peninsula galley, a proper forward-facing chart table and a double aft cabin. The heads compartment is exceptionally roomy for a 30-footer, and holding tanks were commonly fitted from new. Headroom is about 6 feet almost throughout.

Bavaria did not use a molded interior liner. Joinery units are bonded directly to the hull, which wastes less space and lets you reach the hull and seacocks, and the deckhead is covered with removable vinyl-faced plywood panels, so leaks and deck fittings can be inspected. The cruiser series also switched to lighter-toned mahogany veneers than earlier Bavarias, and Harding found the joinery on a nearly 20-year-old boat still substantial and well finished. Stowage is good and berths are a sensible length.

How she sails, from a test and two owners

Yachting Monthly's test was in only 8 to 12 knots of wind, yet the boat made 4 to 5 knots and tacked through just under 100 degrees in fairly flat water, despite a fixed two-blade propeller and tired sails. The magazine found her nicely balanced, with direct feel through the wheel, though slightly stern-heavy, a trait 30 Cruisers are known for.

An owner interviewed by Practical Boat Owner put the sweet spot at 8 to 16 knots of wind, with a respectable 5 to 6 knots under sail, and said the boat is not much good below 5 knots of breeze. He also warned that in-mast furling hurts performance. Two adults and two children cruise comfortably; more adults and it gets tight. Treat this as a coastal cruiser that will cross a channel or a sound in the right weather, not an offshore passagemaker.

What a 20-year-old 30 Cruiser usually needs

The encouraging news is structural. The boat Yachting Monthly profiled came through survey cleanly, and the magazine reported that clean structural surveys are the norm for this model. The owner's first-winter list is a realistic guide to what you will face. Near the top was replacing the rudder-tube seal and making the bolt through the rudder stock captive, because the rudder had once tried to drop out and was stopped only by the steering quadrant. The rest was routine for the age: a section of backstay, the saildrive anode, seacocks, the calorifier and leaky plastic plumbing connections, plus electrical and mechanical tidying.

Those jobs cost about £7,000 on top of the purchase price, not counting the owner's own labor. In US terms, budget roughly $8,000 to $12,000 for the first year on a boat that has not been recently refitted, more if it needs sails. One detail worth checking before you buy: if a boat was built without an electric windlass, the anchor-well molding differs, so fitting one later is harder than you might expect.

Bavaria 30 Cruiser for sale, what to pay

Most 30 Cruisers are in Europe. In 2026 we saw them listed from £29,950 for a 2006 boat through £34,995 to £41,950 for 2005 and 2006 boats, £39,995 for a 2007 boat and €45,000 to €46,000 in Portugal and elsewhere. Yachting Monthly's guide is £38,000 to £52,000. In the US, expect roughly $38,000 to $62,000 depending on condition, keel and equipment, and allow for transport or delivery if the right boat is overseas. Annual running costs for a 31-footer, including a slip, insurance, haul-out and engine service, run about $6,000 to $12,000.

Other Bavaria 30s, and the 31 Cruiser that followed

Search for a Bavaria 30 yacht and you will also find older boats. Bavaria built 30-foot models in the late 1980s and 1990s, including the Axel Mohnhaupt-designed Bavaria 300 of 1989, with narrower beams and different interiors; listings sometimes call these 30 Cruisers too, so check the build year. The 30 Cruiser itself was replaced for the 2008 model year by the beamier Bavaria 31 Cruiser, which in turn gave way to the Cruiser 32 in 2010.