London International Boatshow

[Time Out]

"NO boat show with the possible exception of Monaco or Palm Beach is like what it was 10 years ago..."

can't we add the much closer to UK - Dusseldorf Show to those? If D-dorf is also a thinned down version of it's former self then it must have been vast before... I'm finding it a great Euro alternative to the LBS, but I do admit it takes a bit longer to get to than Excel.

Düsseldorf is still the “Daddy” but even that is a very different show to what it was 10 years ago. Hall 6 has been through a number of changes and the chandlery and bits and bobs have also changed.

Don’t get me wrong it’s stull THE show but like all of them it has suffered in terms of general Expo decline.

Enjoy it ! And there is only one place for lunch. That’s outside in the centre and hopefully snow !

 

[Jeepster]

Went yesterday. Very small show and a few chandlers with small stands. lots of non boaty stuff and acres of powerboats.
Best part of the day was the ride on the Emirates cable car to get to Excel (5 minutes walk from North Greenwich tube station )
Book tickets on line at £.50 one way and ride 90 meters above the Thames

The cable car looks even better from the Thames, 90 meters below!

 

[oldgit]

Believe it or not boats will actually float on freshwater. !

Saturday was extremely busy, more than enough on show to keep a grandad plus 2 x 5 year olds occupied and entertained for an afternoon.
The usual peripheral stuff was of course present, but it was a boat show and there were boats there in plenty to view and/or gawp at, from the largish and dare one say hideous, to the small cheap and cute.
Good balance between stuff that will go straight from the factory to the Med and from the factory to a river somewhere.
Long waits for Princess and Fairline and not convinced about forking out £1.000.000 on that Sealine especially with those precipitous steps down to the forecabin
Canalboat walkthrough was educational and had a good natter to the CaRT people.
The RNLI beach was delight and the RYA members lounge a sanctuary from the melee below.
Best visit to date.

 

[Magnum]

That what we are looking at, my installer has fitted a few Axiom & peeps seem very happy.

Can't find any details online regarding the new VHF, can you? It's available next month I'm told.

 

[Dick Atcherley]

I dropped in for an hour, on Thursday, and found that was quite enough. Lots of stuff that has appeared to take up the slack, presumably, in terms of paddle-boards and inland waterway stuff, that didn't much spark my interest - to each their own, I guess. Went and had a chat with Garmin about their purchase of Navionics and plans for the future - tight lips all round, so we'll have to wait and see what motivated the purchase! As someone said earlier, the best bit was the cable car trip over the Thames. However, I heard from someone who worked at TFL at the time that there were various different proposals on the table which would have really benefitted London (Two plans fro brides, one for a tunnel) and one that was clearly only of interest to tourists - the cable car! Which one did we get...?

 

[TonyR123]

I thought there were a lot more smaller boats this year but maybe what I am interested in now has changed. More selection at Southampton for sure. Unlikely I will go next year, but January is the time when you start to look fwd to the coming season so I will probably end up there.

One boat I did like (or this missus did) was the sunseeker manhatten 66. Hopefully a good few years until I upgrade to that though!

 

[Offshore57]

We went on the friday and had a very enjoyable wander round for a couple of hours...not the biggest obviously, and a shame there was nothing outside on or by the water, but easy to walk round without bashing into the weekend crowd. Bentley was a stunner and loved the Norwegian boat (Cormate or something) beautiful lines..Entered a few free competitions like you do....hope we win the Honwave 270 one, could do with a new dinghy.

 

[stelican]

Interesting show from the posts
Would be good to hear exhibitors views as regards sales and from the punters on what they spent their money on.
Shame UK Boat exhibitors swamped by imports.
Was unable to visit this year went to the last 37!

 

[Greg2]

Went yesterday and had an enjoyable day. Seemed to be a bit too busy around lunchtime but that may have been just on the bit we were looking at (Jeanneau yachts). Too many kids with parents who didn’t appear to have considered for a second that they have some kind of responsibility for controlling their offspring. Made it difficult to look at the boats properly.

That aside the rest of the day was good. Looked at what we wanted to look at and had the opportunity to chat with some helpful people on stalls - rigging, sails and yacht charter - we are thinking of moving over to the dark side!

Liked the changes to the Haines 32, thought the Sealine 330 coupe and sports cruiser were nice with useful layouts but didn’t think much of the interior to the Rodman 42.

Only thing we bought was some outdoor furniture! Not what we went for but we have been looking for a while and the guy had something we liked so that was it!

Overall thought there was enough there for an enjoyable visit and will continue to support it.