Media A little walk through the worlds gratest boat exhibition "boot" 2006

[LooserLu]

Hi,
I am proud to lead you a bit round here at the "boot" 2006 in Duesseldorf at the river Rhine in Germany (January 21th to January 29th).

Over 100.000 visitors during the first two days already have seen all the stuff of watersport in 17 halls and some say, this exhibition is in the moment somthing like a "center of the watersport" around the globe.

I have been there at Sunday 22th for over 8 hours. Not all what I was able to see, I could photograph for you, because the batteries of my small camera went low ... So, my friends, there are no photos of the lovely halls 12 to 16, sorry (hall 8 do not exist). I'll make some photos of them next year, ok?

P.S.: The 42-meters-long Superyacht "Catwalk" (built in the Bavarian shipyard "Kaiserwerft") has her name from the fact, that inside she has a real catwalk, which is the central-stair to the salon-room and it can change its colour into several other colours.
This Yacht also has: marmor-floores everywhere, an own disco, 30 telephones, 9 TVs and 9 stereoplayers, 2000 PS horsepower, 7 crewmen and a captain that can steer the ship with a seperate remote control unit from land. She weights about 210.000 kilograms and her maximum speed is about 20 knots.

During the Catwalk was prepared for the show, an unknown oil-duke with his entourage from Saudi-Arabia came aside of the stand of the Kaiserwerft and bought this Yacht - 11.000.000 Euro (about 12,8 Mio US-$)...

Cheers!

P.P.S: In the attachment of this thread is a ms-word-97-doument with two texts (in English) of the exhibition-newspaper that was available there when I did my visit.

 

[WestCoast]

looks good Ludwig!

something for my booth to aspire to at our local show......

 

[LooserLu]

Yes, George,
many to see there. Usually, it is not possible to keep all in mind in one day. Only such crazy sailors like the Looserlu with a "army-walk" is able to hush around every where like a squirrel ...

This year, the German Laser-stand is divided in two sections for the first time.

One, with the clothes and the sailing equipment, found place in the Hall 4, which is the "Mekka" for all that need shakles etc.pp and new sailing-clothes. There, in Hall 4, is also an independend sailingstore that sells Laserparts like them from Roostersailing. The other independend Laserstores are in cooperation standing at a stand (there where the 29er and the "RS" is at one of my photos) beside of the German Laserstand in Hall 17.
The German Laserstand, at their second stand (Hall 17), also shows Optitimist-dinghies, Europes, 420er, 470er etc. and I'm the opinion, that it is a good decision only to show the boats there. Much more space to explain the interested visitors all the lovely dinghies and other open sailing boats.

I was more than 2,5 hours at Hall 4 to do my deals and at least, I lost my orientation there complete... But, I got (relatively cheap) all the stuff that I wanted and had carrying it in my bag at my back the hole time was the best "weight training" of this month

Also the decision, to install a Chill-out-lounge was a great idea this year. They made a great aft-show-party with plenty of good music etc. for the youth there and for the older folks (like me) they made a big TV-live-show (at Hall 13, where now the new event-water-basin is) that was receivable to hole Europe via satellite Astra. I was impressed to see Russel Coutts, he also sails Laser, and made a 30 minutes interview in Hall 17. He said, he definitely not returns to AC for this campagne. With Bernie Beilken, I could shake hands. He won the Admirals Cup 3 times in 3 different categories for Germany in the past. He is the owner of one of the best sail-lofts of the world and made a lot of fast high-quality-sails for us durnig my professional-sailing-time during the end of the 70ties.

One thing I can add to the big red offshore-powerboat "Hydrolift":
She has also 2000 PS horsepowers (like the "Catwalk") and the maximum-speed is 270 kilometers per hour, they say. The owner also is an oil-duke that lives in Saudi-Arabia and races there with her.
The price for this powerboat is about 10 Mio Euro (~11,6 Mio US-$), they say.

How much new Laser-Classic's are that in GER? -> 1800 ....


The other two things that I missed to see:

1.: An official stand of the Laser-class "ILCA-Region Europe" (Think, all other Olympic and non-Olympic sailing-classes have an own stand there in Hall 17)

and

2.:Fred with his nice boats. Where was/is he?

Ciao
LooserLu

 

[WestCoast]

wow! that is a LOT of SAILING STUFF!

At our show, you could have walked around the sailing part in 3 minutes.

I'll post a picture of my ENTIRE booth, so you get an idea how big your show is compared to ours.

Looks like fun! glad you got lots of good stuff at good prices

 

[WestCoast]

here's my little booth at our cities Boat Show.
You guys have it GREAT that you have such a big sailing show!
(I'll be back with a much bigger booth next year....but still...... )

 

[Wavedancer]

LooserLu: What was the approximate split between the number of powerboats (also known as stinkpotters in the US) and sailboats?

Any canting centerboard Lasers?

 

[LooserLu]

Hi,
George, your stand looks pretty good. With this, you also can go to Duesseldorf... You would most shock the German Laserstand with your US-prices for sailing boats, I guess
The stand, where the German Laserstand is, is not square but long-rectangular and one long side is a wall of the hall. And to each small side is a door to hall 16, where the visitors have to go if they come or go to Hall 17. This has advantages. They are able to place their signs high at the wall so that they are to be seen very good. The boats stand side by side to the long side of the stand and you can enter the stand from 3 sides. They designed a central desk (with a cabin behind it), where the final orders are done and also have several small places to sit - for that the stand-officers can talk calm to the interested visitors.


'Wavedancer', hi, no, unfortunately the new Lasers din't had that new canting-keel's. But there where yachts that already had that gizmo for big boating

It is difficult to say how much belongs to motorboating and how much to sailing boats. The reason is, that there are halls (4, 5, 9,10) that only represent equipement stuff for boating "in general" (f.e: trailers in hall 10). I count four halls of this. There are 2 halls (16-17) with the smaller sailing boats and three halls with motorboats (11, 12, 15). But the stands for the motorboats are wider than the stands for the sailingboats. So, I think, the splitt is nearly equal between both.
There are also two big halls only for chartering (Hall 13-14). It is an open secret here, that going there during the exhibition and ordering the ships for the next upcoming sailingseason brings you the best boats and prices (you can walk easy between the different offerers and can compare all quick before the ordering is done). We chartered ships for two trips this year. One at the Baltic Sea and one for Friesland/NED. My friends, that have done the orders during I was fighting in Hall 4, also make a trip round the big island Mallorca/ESP in the Mediteranian Sea and got a Janneau Sun Fast 35.

Hall 6, the hall for the Super-Yachts, is for motorboats only.
The Super-Yacht Catwalk is the largest they had there ever (but not the most expensivest one. "Thyssen-Krupp-Marine-Systems" at Blohm&Voss-Shipyard in Hambrug makes and maintenance much bigger private Super-Yachts and they cost up to 100.000.000 Euro's, which is ~10x a Yacht Catwalk...)

Hall 7a represents also a lot of brookers with luxury-sailing-yachts. But they only show them with small modells at their stands (see on of my photos above)

My new "innovation-gizmo", that I got form the 'boot' is a special PTFE-paste to lubricate the masttep of the Laser. This paste is much better than Mc-Lube, because it is waterproof and together with the PTFE-discs, the end of the mast of Laser GER171442 turns easier in low winds now

Most popular this year at the boot for the visitors is all that belongs to surfing/kiting/windsurfing/waterskiing and diving and canoeing. One reason for that is, only few stuff and lessons to learn that sort of water sports is needed compared to sailing and motor-boating. So, the halls 1, 3 and 4 where full of visitors but at halls 16, 9-11, 2(fishing) , where only few visitors.


Ciao
LooserLu