We (No 2 daughter and I,) went on Friday and Saturday. Spent Friday in the expo hall looking at the various toys. I was pleasantly surprised I didn't find anything I really "had" to buy although I spent a happy fe minutes reminiscing about old times sailing my Hobie in HKG whilst admiring the new
Hobie Cat offerings.
We enjoyed the Cruising Helmsman hour on the stage which, whilst being very cramped due to the time limitations was very interesting. We also spent about an hour pondering and researching the
RYA Yachtmaster quiz. (No googling just for fun.)
Saturday morning we were lucky to be invited to the WCC breakfast presentation. A very interesting couple of hours chatting to various others with similar dreams and more or less experience, and a very informative presentation about the ARC's, World
ARC etc. Some interesting stats in boats that participate in the
ARC at the end!
After this we spent the rest of Saturday moseying around the marina looking at (mainly) the mono hulls as that's where the heart lies. The usual mix of production boats was supplemented by three stand outs, an Amel 555 which was (apparently) just going on the market, a nice Moody 54DS - but I don't get the hard
Bimini which ends at (my) eye line about 3 inches in front of my face when standing at the
helm. I couldn't see over it, I couldn't see under it and my overriding impression was I would be constantly banging my face on it. Other than that it looked a very nice comfortable yacht. Third was a nice Australian built
Bluewater which was a more traditional style of yacht, beautiful
interior, lots of strong
rigging, high
lifelines etc., very proud owner!
Of the Beneteau's, Hanse's, Bavaria's, Jeanneau's, Dufore's, Elan's, Dehler's we started at the smallest of each and worked our way up the size and
price range to see what the extra $'s bought.
The small open
cabin in the little Beneteau's just seem odd. No privacy and shouldn't the wall between the main
cabin and the forward bunk be a bulkhead? It just didn't seem right. One of them had a very sharp edge to a cupboard in the forward cabin which seemed very out of place and quite hazardous.
The Hanse's are all nice and clean with the light interiors, the Elan's, Dehler's and Dufore's all seem to have a lot of white
hull (might have been the sun reflecting) all over and the rest are much the same. The interiors are nice and clean and tidy. One point we made continually on all these yachts was the low height of the
lifelines. I'm used to finding them at the end of my arm on my little C & C and on all these yachts I had to bend lower which seems a
safety issue.
Of all the production boats the ones we liked the best were the Jeanneau's , particularly the 42DS and the Azuree 46.
All in all it just reinforced my thoughts that $X squillion spent on a
new boat might well be better spent on an older
boat.
After that it was a quick trip around the various big, bigger, biggest
motor types boats, (and some so big the minders looked at us, shook their heads sadly and just said "No - you can't come on board.") all very interesting but I just don't get it. We also did look at some of the
catamaran and again, I just don't get it. Each to his own I suppose.
Everyone we met on the way round was very friendly and hefpful. It's a great atmosphere, a good show and a great excuse to down tools at last minute and run away to
Sydney for a weekend.
Why am I boring you with all this? Just reminiscing and nobody at home is remotely interested in my boat show prattling!
Back to
work tomorrow for a rest.
p
Sent from my
iPad using Cruisers Sailing Forum