Backtracking – Our first visit to the Düsseldorf boat show (Boot 2012)
The Düsseldorf boat show, the largest in the world, is Disneyworld for anyone interested in boats and watersports. Seventeen enormous halls comprise all aspects of water sport including sail and motor yachts, dingies and ribs, canoes and kayaks as well as diving, surfing, fishing and destinations. You need a minimum of two days just to see half of it.
As you can see, the Düsseldorf Boat and Watersports Show is the size of many football fields (compare with the Düsseldorf Football stadium at the upper left).
We went to the show specifically to check out our current (back then) short list of boats. Number one on the list was the Hallberg-Rassy 54 or 48. The 54 was being shown, but not the 48, so we showed up bright and early Monday morning to tour the boat and speak with someone from the yard.
We wanted to get a feel for the boat and ask ourselves “could we live on this boat on a permanent basis, also with 2-4 guests onboard?” My previous boats were both much smaller — the first, 26 feet and the second, 36 feet. A 36-foot boat is reasonably roomy for a couple and occasionally another 2 people for a weekend, but not much more. I remember feeling really cramped and missing some private space in the boat when we were 4 onboard. It had only a forward cabin, the two saloon sofas as berths and a quarter berth.
We really liked the H-R 54 and it became our confirmed “top of the shortlist”. It fulfilled all of the requirements mentioned in the previous post. We were also interested in the Regina af Vindö 49 and the Nordship (which would have been a custom build for a boat of 48-55 ft), but they were not present at the show.
Here’s a short video of the 2 sailboat halls:
The Inspiration has become the Intention
In January of 2012, we had no boat — just the absolute certainly that in 5 years we would have one. In my mind, however, we already had the boat. I had absolutely no doubt that this was going to happen. So we started buying things for the boat and for us, her future skippers.
We bought quite a few things in Düsseldorf, taking advantage of special boat show prices. Somethings go for as much as 50% off, because it was the last model from last year and they want to make room for the new stuff.
I knew what I had, wanted and missed in my former boat, so I started from there. I also knew from past experience that you always need to ask yourself (several times) “do we really need this/will this really contribute to our life onboard?” You always need more storage than you have.
We first needed a “sailing wardrobe”. The last time we had sailed was back in 1999. We thought we’d finished the book on sailing and gave all of our sailing gear away to other people, thinking we would never need it again. We had to stock up again from nothing.
We would be needing some gear to get us through those 1,000 nautical miles to get qualified for our Swiss ocean sailing permits. We knew we’d being doing most of them in northern Europe, where the water temperature rarely gets above 16°C, so we needed a serious foul weather wardrobe.
Sailing gear for the higher latitudes
We knew that we’d be sailing in colder temperatures, starting with Brittany and Normandy in the north of France in April, 2012. Knowing that air temperatures would range from 2-15° C, and sea temps around 6 °C, we started with this list:
- Gore-tex foul-weather gear from Henri Lloyd (Ocean Explorer line)
- Gore-tex leather boots (mine: Dubarry, Jacques’: Aigle). It’s difficult to find good gore-tex sailing boots when you wear a women’s size 36 (6 in US) and Dubarry are one of the few who provide small sizes for women (from a size 35 (5 in US).
- Winter-weight first and second layers and merino socks (we started with synthetics and then went completely over to merino from Smart Wool, Icebreaker and Rewoolution).
- Waterproof winter sailing gloves
- Merino wool ski caps and neck tubes
- Polarfill jackets for night sailing (when it’s really cold)
- Spinlock 5D life vests (270N)
- Gill rescue knife