When I bought High Time in 2012 I decided that I could fit most of the interior extras myself (VHF, sound system, TV, heating, AIS, wifi, laptop etc.) but I would pay for the yard/dealer to fit items to the mast (radar, VHF and TV antennas) and underwater (bow thruster, folding prop). 

Most of the above I would consider essential (in northern Europe). It's your choice, of course, whether to fit any yourself.

Interior layout, materials and colours are personal choice. We chose 3 cabins, cherry wood, brown cloth upholstery and teak/holly (look-alike) floor. It all looks good together and the brown upholstery is very practical i.e. doesn't show marks at all.

One major item I would counsel against is in-mast furling main. I wanted this for ease and convenience (now that I'm past 70) and it is great to roll away and forget. However, it is a constant source of annoyance when in use - it's doesn't set well, especially reefed, and occasionally jams.

Choosing the extras is probably the most difficult and exciting part of buying a new boat but the cost can quickly mount up at dealer prices. Choose carefully.

Good luck.

When we bought Night Train we had a good idea of the extras we wanted, including air con and electric winches as we usually sail shorthanded. We have a traditional main that drops into the lazy bag and find that it works well, especially with the electric winches. The one thing we regretted was the number of instrument displays we got, having only one at each helm station, when the autopilot is activated, the display changes to autopilot mode, ok you can isolate this to the individual unit but you have to scroll through the functions to get back to the useful information. We have subsequently added one additional display which is very useful.

Good luck and enjoy the process!

Paul

Hi Seebär,

I have a 345 with the plastic windows and hatches. We are now in the 4th season and I had to start polishing the outsides as they were becoming dull. Wish I could change to glass.

I have ordered the whole nav package ( with out the AIS, but including the VHF ). You can easily fit te AIS later, everything is prepared inclduing the antenna splitter. Same thing for the fusion radio.

I am missing a deckslight and I have not found an easy way to route the addtional cable to the mast foot.

Hanse's are not really designed and built for electrics extensions afterwards.

There are conduits provided, some even have drawstrings included but routing cables does require patience and care. It is often not clear where the conduit ends. There was some pre-wiring included on High Time - for instance all the cabling for the Fusion radio, including speaker leads to the cockpit was pre-installed. I think they may have stopped this on later boats, though.

What options did you go for and when do you expect delivery?

 

congrats, you have decided to go for a real quality boat!  I would recomment to pay a visit to the yard in Greifswald during the build phase and take pictures of 415's in different stages of the assembly process.

The option list is definitely a difficult decision. It depends where you sail and how you are going to use the boat.

 

My strategy was to include all options which are difficult to retrofit. So I went for nav package ( full monty with autopilot ) , electric winches, Eberspächer diesel heater, cruising pack, comfort pack, inverter for Nespresso machine, better matresses and upgraded sails. In your case I would also add the bow truster. Go for a stainless chain and anchor!

 

As canvas work ex yard is(was) of crappy quality I would add lazy bags, sprayhood and evtl bimini from a local supplier who is using Sunbrella fabric or similar. Same thing for a code 0 or a furling gennaker, get it locally.

 

Have fun !

 

wish you fair winds for your maiden voyage to NED. Are you taking the "indoor" or the outdoor route?

Take some warm clothes any way, this winte weather is no longer predicatable. I just shoveled 20 cm of "Niederschlag" away to get to my Garage :)

 

Best wishes

 

The problems I had with in-mast furling were caused by the Z Spars rig with a North Sails main with 5 vertical battens. The Z Spars mast is not recommended for battened sails and the final solution to my problems was to remove some of the battens. This unfortunately results in a pronounced hook in the leach or a flap if you don't tighten the leach line which reduces performance. It also doesn't set very well when reefed.

Sure, in-mast is great for convenience and tidyness but a fully (horizontal) battened main with slab reefing is actually a better design solution for a sailing boat.

You should discuss with your dealer what sail and rig you would get now with in-mast - Selden rig and Elvestrom sail might be a good combination.