Annapolis Boat Show

Friday 5 October: Annapolis Boat Show.
This morning we are beyond ourselves with excitement as we look forward to our day at Annapolis Boat Show.
We get there right on time for the opening and we start our browsing at Parasailor stand. Our asymmetric proved from the beginning not to be the perfect equipment for us, and we are looking at other options. A parasail would be great, but when we saw the quote for our size, we thanked politely and walked away. $18,000!!! We can burn looots of diesel for the cost of that sail!
Stand after stand, we come across lots of interesting items. At McMurdo we raise the issue of our EPIRB activating by itself last week and they offered to take it for a check. And at ACR stand we inquire on which is the best option: change the battery of our current epirb, or buy a new one for which the batterywill last 10 years.
At Cool Climate Control we come across the frigo boat keel coolers for fridges, which Glen has been contemplating on for quite some time. And few minutes later, we purchased 3 of them.
Aren’t those “special show price” great?… and yet so very dangerous! In the morning, when we were entering the show, Glen joked: “so what’s my budget for this show? $10,000?” To which Oana has replied “$20!”. But by midday we were already 1/3 the way towards Glen’s original figure!
During our walk through we bumped into our new acquaintances from the Hallberg Rassy reception. And also into some YouTube fans from Toronto, which we hope we can get in touch with in few days when we will be visiting the Canadian city. She has recognized us by our “voices and Oana’s smile”. How nice is that 🙂
We stopped for a short visit at Garcia boat, where Pete and Tracy were exhibiting their own Garcia 45, but they where very busy and we couldn’t chat to them. Interesting to view Garcia, an aluminum swing keeled French yacht, because Glen was quite taken with the design at Dusseldorf Boat Show 3 years ago.
At the Side Power stand, we learn that the black greasy powder we started to get under our bow berth translates into: the bow thruster engine needs servicing. Turnaround is delayed this time of year, and we can’t see how we will manage to take ours off the boat, send it to the service and get it back in due time before Nov 1st. So that will have to wait. It probably only need new brushes anyway.
At Interlux stand, we have an extensive chat about the various types of antifoul. Previously, we always used Hempel, but we don’t find this brand outside Europe. So looks like we will be using 66 if we haul out in USA, or 99 if we haul out in Antigua. Then we debate again, whether we will paint Cloudy Bay’s blue stripe in awlgrip, or apply a vinyl strip over the gel coat. So contacts are made to get quotes  on both options.
Another near-buy was a Sailrite yacht sewing machine, which we were quite taken with. We will probably use it for canvas work when repairs are needed. But realistically, there is no way on earth we can stitch our sails with this machine. It would sew the sails OK but the gap to feed the cloth through was impossibly small for our laminate sails.
Rust removers, Turkish towels, inflatables, clothing, boats, tools, paints, lettering… we gave them all a once around. And as the organizers announced the show is closed for the day, we are just finishing the visit in the last tent. Oooph! Where did that day go to? What a great show it was.
Back at Cloudy Bay we spend the evening following up on the subjects we discussed at the show: emails, calls, more items added to our already long “to do” list. And packing for our trip. Tomorrow we fly to Toronto, for family visit. Vacation time!
Blog will continue when we return next week.