Miami Boat Show 2009

Michael201 · #1 02-18-2009

Anyone else attend? Thoughts?

I did notice that there were fewer sailboat mfgs. at the show. I guess it was expected. As always, I enjoyed looking at some of the high cost day sailor boats...

On the high side, the Oyster, Passports and Hylas were fun too look at. Okay, I'm biased since I bought Passport.

On the low side, I walked through the 60+ foot Hanse and was totally shocked at the condition it was in. The poor build quality was visually evident in several ways. Two large headliners were detached and hanging down. Looking inside, it's clear why. Kind of backs up the story of the couple who purchased a smaller Hanse a year or so ago and had major completion issues all over the boat. Just shocked that they would show it in this condition in this environment.

labatt · #2 02-18-2009

We were there. I wasn't overly impressed at StrictlySail, but the exhibit areas - wow! I was shocked at how many exhibitors there were, and from what I understand there were a lot of vendor cancellations. We saw a lot of cool technologies, some nice LED lighting, and got our boat show discount at Defender for a lot of stuff.

xort · #3 02-18-2009

What about the Fartan?

Pharmdog · #4 02-18-2009

A lot of empty marina ,but, I got some good "boat show specials". Did anyone attend the Lats/Atts cruiser party?

Winderlust · #5 02-19-2009

xort, LOL, you beat me to it.

SiXeVeN · #6 02-19-2009

Did you guys see "Sticky Toffee"??? I thought she was a beautiful craft. Oh, and a bargain at 1.7 million

Michael201 · #7 02-21-2009

Did not see "Stickey Toffee". Wanted to see the bif 70 ft. cat but did not want to wait in line and fill anything out.

Did hear about someone that did a Peter Pan off one of the high rise buildings near the marine. I guess that was why the helo was hovering for so long....

The vendor areas seemed full to me.

Moonfish · #8 02-21-2009

It was an interesting show. It was my 5th Strictly Sail Miami show in a row, and the first time it "shrunk". The vendor area went from one very large tent and one average tent, to just the one very large one - with some empty spots. Show management tried to cancel the other tent, but the trade show mafia that does that part said no, it had already been ordered. So we used it for the Saturday night party, which turned out great. A slightly smaller crowd than last year, which went along with what seemed like a slightly smaller attendance overall. Still, as we do at every official Lats & Atts party, we gave away some very cool prizes including a one-week Sunsail charter in the Caribbean, and a Spectra watermaker.

Of the vendors and clients I spoke with, there was about a 50/50 mix between those who said they had a great show, to those who basically said it sucked. There were certainly fewer new boat manufacturers, and the entire outer dock which in years past had been filled with new boats, was not. About the only part of the show which appeared to have grown was the catamarans. It seems like 5 years ago there was a dock and half filled with cats. This year 3 full docks of multihulls.

The next Strictly Sail Show is in April in Oakland. It's at the same old location, Jack London Square, except the redevelopment of the square is now complete so it should be a better show and environment. And we'll have another Lats & Atts party there, too...

Moonfish · #9 02-21-2009

Oh yeah, we got a personal tour of the 70' Sunreef there by Ewa, the very nice and very beautiful Director of Marketing for Sunreef. Wow, that cat has more square footage than my first house. I liked the recessed "garage" on the bow, which contained a jet ski in it. A retractable hydraulic crane was next to it. Bob said he'd put a couple of Harleys in there... Sunreef is interested in having us do one of our TV boat reviews in the Bahamas. Hmmmm, now should I hire a cameraman, or maybe shoot that one myself? Decisions, decisions...