Düsseldorf boat show observations

[MarkC]

A couple of thoughts -

I have an open mind when it comes to motor vessels, but I was surprised with the quality of some of the hulls of the large fiberglass motor yachts on display at the show. I had some fun lining up my eye to see how fair the hulls were. Some knocks and dings can be attributed to the yacht's transport - but others must have been a bad mould or form. If you are going to have these glistening yachts which show up every (unintentional) wobble in flat surface ... and these were by no means back-yard or small companies. I saw one expensive Italian yacht that must have had some osmosis or blister removal - someone had then just slapped on antifoul instead of filling the fault - and it was right at eye level...

Do they use the prototype as the display boat?? Do they try and whack there boats out too fast??

I was very impressed with the steel offerings from the Dutch companies - finishes like glass, better than a car's paint job. The steel range offered by Linssen, 'grand sturdy' - wow, what a line-up! and the Linden Jachtbouw - what a great boat! Seemed to me more honest, better thought out, they speak 'reliability'.

With the aluminium sailing yachts on show, again,the same quality.

The Düsseldorf show seems oriented towards showing boats - the Friedrichshafen boat show, on Lake Constance, seems geared towards selling maintenance parts for yacht owners - more smaller boats on show and more small, start-up boat construction companies. I haven't been to the Hamburg boat show yet - that would make another good comparison.

[CDBarry]

There are a lot of tricky issues about mold building and fairness in FRP. You can get some surprising wobbles and things from a wide variety of sources, including differential thermal sinks on either the plug or the mold. Sometimes the plug sticks in the mold, and you have some repairs to the mold that never are quite right. Once you have done the mold and pull the boat you have what you have, for better or worse.

Metal is somewhat self-fairing, and you can always fix it with a grinder, a torch and water hose (steel only) and some (maybe a lot of) time - or fairing compound.

Metal self fairing that is bulshit. Welding always couses the metal to deform. On some boats you can even count the number of frames. To avoid this you realy need to know in which order to weld and need to make a proper weld withourt using to much heat. for aliminum it is ever worse. You need a to be a very capable craftsman to make e nice metal boat or you a lot of filler to make it nice and fair (is this what they cal an epoxy boat??).

As for fiberglass boats ofcourse ther are several reasons cousing unfairnes but i think the major problem is lack of craftsman ship or attention!

[MarkC]

Maybe because the steel and aluminium models have an up-hill battle against the fiberglass products that they must bring perfect examples along to the boat show.

Maybe the fiberglass production boats are facing such competition that have to speed up their processes - and quality suffers. But these fiberglass boats were damn expensive! If their display model has an un-fair hull, what happens when they have a bad day?

Well the Dutch steel and German aluminium boats really impressed - no hype there, no sales girls running around in mini-skirts. No 'you will have to make an appointment to see our yachts'. (Criticism, though, for the Linssen 'Grand Sturdy' sales book - yes a whole book - it was full of pretty pictures of happy, cuddling families, but not enough about boat detail - perhaps the books are aimed at the wife, crusing buddy??)

If it wasnt for the shapes of the unmistakable steel keels you would know it was a steel boat. I do prefer cruising boats/yachts and therefore a bit biased - but I thought they were gems.