London had beautiful boats outside too - but how many people visited them?

Marine architect and commentator Andrew Wolstenholme looks at our shop window and suggests the German boat show is nearly three times bigger – but is it better too?

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Two of the most important shows for the marine industry fall in January – London and Dusseldorf. There have been years when the two have overlapped but generally Dusseldorf follows London a week or two later. They make an interesting comparison.

Since its move from Earls Court to the Excel centre in London’s docklands the London boat show has struggled to generate the aura of excitement that Earls Court had.

Emerging from the Earls Court tube to see a famous yacht or powerboat sat outside the art deco exhibition hall immediately set the tone for what was to come. Once inside there was the dramatic central pool with themed buildings around its edge, and the balcony to peer down from on the boats below and dream. But the industry had outgrown it - and its shortage of places to sit and rest your legs, and places to eat seem to have escaped the memory of the critics of Excel.

Excel is a functional modern exhibition hall and, it has to be said, a tad uninspiring – but it has a dock, the opportunity to walk outside and get some fresh air, places to sit, and lots of choice of food. And it has the space to exhibit the ever larger boats that the 21st century UK boatbuilding industry is producing – boats that you could never have squeezed through the streets of the West End let alone get into the exhibition centre.

Unfortunately National Boat Shows was slow to address criticisms of the early Excel shows and numbers of visitors and exhibitors started to fall.

Which is a pity because this year, with the dramatic new extension to the east end of the exhibition centre, it came close to generating the buzz that we had at Earls Court.

This year’s show was a huge improvement on previous years.

The new split levels gave the opportunity to look down on the boats again, and the activities pool in the north hall was brilliant and just what was needed to stimulate interest in waterborne activities in the young and not so young.

The show felt fresh and different and I was excited by the change. For the last four days of the show Excel also hosted the London Bike Show and The Outdoor Show and entrance into either show gave you free entrance into the other two shows. This worked well for the boat show who may not otherwise have gone – and gave something different for jaded boat show exhibitors to go and look at.

It also reminded me how exciting the boat show is.

However expensive and glitzy a bike may be it is still only a couple of metres long and generally has two wheels, and the Outdoor Show was very brown. In contrast the boat show was bright and exciting with a huge variety of glamorous boats (and cars) to feast your eyes on.

Some pundits were heard muttering that the change may have come too late to reverse the show’s fortunes, and not all exhibitors were happy, but overall the impression I had was that most people were congratulating the organisers on doing a good job. The biggest mystery to me is why they continue to hide what could be the show’s greatest asset – the dock. It is difficult enough for regular visitors to find the entrance but those attending the show for the first time could leave without ever knowing the dock existed. Crazy. Surely there should be a wide transverse walkway from the central concourse clearly leading you to the dock entrance? Those who made it outside would find a collection of Sunseeker and other superyachts, and new for this year, a second hand boat marina. Not as exciting as in previous years in my opinion – in the past we have had a frigate, a tall ship, barges, and the first year there the magnificent steam tug Challenger which periodically steamed around the dock and was the highlight of that show for me. The organisers task now is to build on what was achieved this year and try and persuade those lapsed visitors that it is worth coming to again.

Dusseldorf ran from the 22nd to the 30th January this year so there was a short time to catch breath before heading across the North Sea. Boot – as the show is called – is huge. It claims to be - or certainly used to - the largest boat show in the world and it definitely feels like it. It is staged in 17 halls at the Dusseldorf Messe, ten minutes from the airport and on the banks of the mighty Rhine. The trade press releases claimed that 80,000 people attended over the first weekend and 250,000 over the whole show, compared to the 110,000 that visited the London show.

Germany is a major boating market and the show features boats from builders around the world making it an important show to visit. Apparently this year there were 1571 exhibitors from 61 countries.

I have been going each year for 20 years or more and have seen how this show is affected by the economic climate just as any other. In recent years there have been noticeable open spaces in some of the halls and this was quite apparent this year reflecting the difficult times, although the feeling there seemed to be one of guarded optimism with the market steadily, if slowly, improving. In past years Broom and Hardy have exhibited there along with Oyster and the UK’s other major builders, but this year I only saw Oyster flying the flag from this region Two valid criticisms of Excel over the years are that it is generally the same year on year and that there is little different to draw casual visitors back every year, and that there is very little space devoted to features of general interest. The Classic Boat feature goes some way to address the latter point and, yes, this year it was different but that was because of the new east extension.

With the benefit of sheer size Dusseldorf always has something different to excite the regular visitor, and interestingly there seems to be a greater variation in the companies that exhibit each year. There are companies that you expect to see each year but there is also a group that come and go ensuring that you never know what you are going to find on show.

The organisers find space for class associations, classic boat collections, maybe a museum display (as this year from Lübeck), and usually a boat of some specific interest. Last year there was a fabulously restored 1960s 28ft Russian hydrofoil from Lithuania (have a look at www.strela-hydrofoil.com) and I remember some years back seeing a Russian WIG (wing in ground effect) craft on display.

Hall Six is the superyacht hall where there are always cutting edge designs on display. A chunky travel hoist called ‘Big Willie’ enables yachts of up to around 120ft to travel up the Rhine and be hauled out and into the show so you can always expect to see something pretty dramatic.

The Ferretti group stand is usually a regular feature with its multi-storey aluminium and glass office surrounded by examples of their Ferretti, Mochi, Riva, and Pershing ranges, but I was surprised that they weren’t there this year and that they relied on smaller displays from their main distributors – an indication of Two valid criticisms of Excel over the years are that it is generally the same year on year and that there is little different to draw casual visitors back every year, and that there is very little space devoted to features of general interest. The Classic Boat feature goes some way to address the latter point and, yes, this year it was different but that was because of the new east extension.

With the benefit of sheer size Dusseldorf always has something different to excite the regular visitor, and interestingly there seems to be a greater variation in the companies that exhibit each year. There are companies that you expect to see each year but there is also a group that come and go ensuring that you never know what you are going to find on show.

The organisers find space for class associations, classic boat collections, maybe a museum display (as this year from Lübeck), and usually a boat of some specific interest. Last year there was a fabulously restored 1960s 28ft Russian hydrofoil from Lithuania (have a look at www.strela-hydrofoil.com) and I remember some years back seeing a Russian WIG (wing in ground effect) craft on display.

Hall Six is the superyacht hall where there are always cutting edge designs on display. A chunky travel hoist called ‘Big Willie’ enables yachts of up to