No Show

I just read the reader rant about the Miami International Boat Show and was surprised that they managed to sum up exactly what happened at the Toronto International Boat show a couple of weeks back. These shows are becoming increasingly stagnant and motor-driven based. I would have thought that the recent world climate towards oil would have been seen as an opportunity for manufacturers to push their sailboats as a universal better choice to heavy-fuel-bill-carrying motor cruisers and gain some marketshare away from motor boats - but apparently nothing of the sort has been done or even appears on the radar.

The Toronto International Boat Show was a display of the usual and tiresome 30-40 cruiser sailers. Boats with cockpits setup for lounging and sunning on the docks at the marina. What caught my attention in these "living-room" cockpits was the helmsman's console. Here we have a wheel and console screen so detailed with every environmetnal, nautical, navigational control that the wheel and cockpit are virtually impassible due to the sheer size of this "computer station". How practical is it to hardly be able to pass by the helm in open water when it can barely be done while drydocked inside an arena?

As for racing there was one J100 with the bare-bones minimum interior setup as a racer. It retained a workable cockpit however due to the lack finesse of J-Boats themselves and their advertising, this boat looked more like an unfinished boat brought on beside the cruisers to illustrate a "half-finished" model. Surely this is not the way to increase the sales of racing boats or even to entice people into racing at all. So after all the big boats (floating RV's) we searched in vain for a racing boat of some sort and what did we find? We found a personal 505 from a local club who were trying to gain new memberships. Unfortunately they based their market plan all wrong. Here we have one boring old man with boring old pamphlets about his sailing club standing beside a fearfully intimitading old 505 with lines coming out all over the place and a rig tuned like a drum. What could be more unappealing to new sailers than to look upon a monster of a little boat "tweaked out" and personally "modified" for exacting racing conditions when they can't even make out what half the lines do? Nor ever see themselves in this sled.

To increase the membership you have to allow people to imagine themselves in the boats themselves- not scared away from the boats by complicity, money, decorating (or lack therof). So we move onto CL and take a look at all the pricey Dinghys. What could be more unappealing to the "cottage" boater than a $15,000 Club 420? Can you not buy a jetski or skidoo for less? Jesus Christ. Try making boats for the regular family and you may actually someday gain the massive middle markets of the regular consumer which is where success in sailing can only be found.

Disheartened and Disgusted we walked over to the used boat bulletin board and looked over the boats, contemplated buying a Tanzer 22 from Lake Superior for $3000 and sailing it back through all the lakes to Toronto and then sailing the piss out of it for a few years. it may not be oppulent, it certainly isn't "classy" but it's real sailing. -at least for me.

Alix Beck

03/03/06