A new boat show in London

As far as I understand, the (new) Earl's Court show was conceived as a more "family" oriented show, perhaps entry-level into boating, as opposed to the Excel London Boat Show, which in my two experiences has been overcrowded and if you're not waving a wad of cash, the exhibitors aren't interested. Whether they achieved that, I don't know, but I can say it was very quiet last Sunday when we went (the show ran until Sunday 9th December).

But this meant we could actually talk to people, which is a good thing.

Anyway, the first thing you see when getting there is all the large, flash, shiny plastic, of which this pic is all you're going to see in my post...

After about 15 minutes we came across the International College of Boat Building (http://www.ibtc.co.uk), which had two boats under construction at their stand, the first being the "Halcyon 5" being built by college instructor Peter Graham. An interesting little sail-boat. Deep, very narrow beam, and you could fit two people inside, if you like being cosy. I'm not too sure about the practicality of the design, and it looks a little like a clam-shell, but I did take a liking to it.

You can see the cold-moulding of mahogany being laid over the jig here (Peter's the guy in the centre, near the stem):

Watching him work on the hull while we were chatting, it's made me think that maybe cold-moulding is not only for the big builders, and can be a viable option for home-building.

And some pictures of the first one he built, 900 hours he tells me, over five months, in his own time. How, I don't know!!!

From the front:

From behind:

Isn't his woodwork stunning:

And this is the First Mate, seeing if she can feel the joinery... (she couldn't!).

The other boat that they had there was a framework of a Thames Skiff (I think):

And a couple of pic's of a finished example:

The other stand that caught our attention was Hambleden's (http:// www.hambledensalesandcharter.co.uk). Okay, so they rent boats mostly by the looks of their web site, but they had a couple of real beauties to feast the eyes:

A restored Riva:

A little electrically powered river boat:

And an Thames Slipper Launch:

Mmm, I see that one's for sale on their site, £36k if you want it. ;-)

The rest of the show is pretty much what you'd expect (here anyway), with a reasonable selection of AWB's, Raggies and Stinkpots (Average White Boats, Sailing boats and Motor boats).

Another boat that I had a brief look around, was the Trusty 23 (http://www.bluecmarine.com/T23/T23gallery.htm) which though it looks quite small in their pictures, looked large and roomy enough to convince me that Bateau's MT-24 might very well be my next major build. Surely not what Trusty had in mind, but, well...

The most positive thing from the show, for us, was spending half an hour chatting to these people (http://www.sailingholidays.com) and the First Mate, after sort-of thinking of maybe, perhaps, going sailing for a couple of weeks in the Ionian, is now TOTALLY convinced. Result!

As a "start-up" show, just a few weeks before Christmas, it was really quiet. I fear maybe too quiet for them to do it again next year, which will be a shame as I found it far more relaxing than London and Southampton, but that was probably because it was too quiet. Catch-22? Anyway, I hope enough people decide to go to make it viable to do another one. Although, based on some of the pics from previous French shows, they seem to have far more traditional fare, so I might be lured across the Channel sometime in the future.

Tim Hague aka WobblyLegs, London November 2007