Today’s the boat show. It’s pouring right now so we have our foul weather gear on, but were still going. We’re specifically headed to the Melges booth to interrogate them about the 20′. I’ll post pictures and any info I have when I get home.

Update:

OK, I’m home. We went to the show Saturday. It rained all morning so I left the good camera home and wore my foulies and took the P&S instead. First stop was the Melges booth. On the way into the show, there was a sign that said “Introducing the Melges 20, Fast, Fun OD!” but they had ZERO information on the boat. They said they would hopefully know more by Annapolis, but they would not even have a boat there. They did hint that it would be a 3 person version of the 24. Sounds interesting. They did have a rigged Melges32 in the booth and as usual they have some great class magazines.

From there is was over to the Vanguard booth. No SB3 in the booth, but there were Vanguard employees in the booth (it’s technically the Vanguard Sailing Center’s booth, but they are owned by Vanguard….). I was told the SB3 will sell for “Under $35k”, so I’d bet $34,999, but that’s not bad, especially if a big class gets going.

After that is was through the tents to stay out of the rain. Karver as usual had some very sexy blocks. I love their gear, but it isn’t cheap. I found some awesome clearance foul weather pants at Helly Hansen, but they refused to take my gift card, so I refused to give them any of my money… We found the company who makes the bottom paint my parents use on the big boat (and are having some issues with). They were very helpful and are working on a solution. We also found a supplier for almost all the spares the big boat needs, and he’s in Narragansett RI, and has a great website to order from.

After Lunch it was out onto the docks to see some of the boats. A new distributor had the Brenta 38 there. That is one sexy boat. I’d be all over a 20′ version. It’s designed to be the ultimate easy day sailer, but also to be fast. It’s also Italian designed, so it’s very sexy! The crosscurrent 33 was2 docks over and is of similar design. Italian, simple, fast and sexy. A good friend was also over on the Akilaria Class 40 which looked very fun.

We got on an amazing “ship” at the end of the day. We had to wait in line to get on board and didn’t get on until 6:10pm. It was very worth the wait and we had a wonderful talk with the broker who knew the boat very well. He gave us a full tour and it was a wonderfully laid out boat. Doing so got us back to the car in time to get a $25 parking ticket though… (Resident sticker required 6pm~6am)

Sunday I picked my parents up at NEB to go back to the used boat show. On the way down I took them to Vanguard to see the SB3s in person. The off to American Ship Yard to check out the used boats. This show is always the same weekend as the NBS, but it’s completely FREE! We always love going to it to “steal” ideas for the big boat, and admire some gorgeous Yachts…

We got on Whitehawk which was gorgeous. Asking price of $3,900,000 was a bit out of our league though. It was nice to just be able to get on and admire her. The boat that impressed me the most was the J/65. It’s their biggest boat yet. I didn’t expect it to be very nice, but it was actually stunning. Their interior wasn’t laid out as well as it could be, but it was very nicely done. Amazing woodwork for a J boat. Nothing against them at all, I’m just used to their older smaller offerings (J/24, J/37c, J/35, J/44) which are all great boats, but their interiors are a bit stripped. The J/65 also looks like it would fly through the water. My only concern with it would be it’s relatively low freeboard. Nothing bad for racing, but we for cruising. Especially for the offshore deliveries.

I think that about covers all the good stuff. I’ll be adding the links to the boats sites into this later.