Boat Show Movement?
The badly generated AI cover image for the 2022 Melbourne Boat show. No wood to see here!
In Australia, if you are a wooden boat aficionado, with a love of sailing, then you are probably not going to get much satisfaction attending the main stream commercial boat shows. Their core business seems to be in the small fishing boat market, with a side line in jet skis (now rebranded as PWCs), and devices for holding a plastic chardonnay glass stable, while towing a donut loaded with screaming kids.
So it was with some interest that I noticed that when 61st Melbourne Boat Show, takes place at the Docklands waterfront, from 26-29 October. it will include a “Heritage & Wooden Boat Precinct”
Detail is scant, but it seems that the Wattle, The Enterprize, Alma Doepel and other “modern day wooden boats” will be on display at North Wharf. (Click to enlarge)
There is no doubt that the Boat Industry Association of Australia, convenors of the Melbourne Boat Show, are a highly commercially driven organisation, with the financial sucess of their members at the core of all that they do. What is interesting to me, is that they see a “Heritage & Wooden Boat Precinct” as a worthwhile addition to the plastic and chrome of their usual offering. Perhaps authenticity, respect for history and craftsmanship, values that we have cherished all along, are finally starting to becoming significant economic factors in the Australian boating Industry. Let’s hope so.