Boot Düsseldorf, Again - 51° 12' 49" N 06° 47' 35" E

So we are back at Boot, this year as actual boat owners rather than future ones.

 

Dusseldorf has a river, but bridge clearances would not permit a visit on Chinook.
We took the train instead.

Boot Düsseldorf - the world's largest indoor boat show.

We are pretty pumped to be here.

Oh, the things to spend our money on.  We had a list to buy, to look at, to try on...  The show is so huge, a plan is required to make sure we got to the things we wanted to.

Messe where Boot is held, is enormous.  For Melbournians, think sixteen Geoff's Sheds. 
Calgarians, it's sixteen Big Fours.  Filled to the brim with all things boating.

Boot has a hall for sailing destinations, packed full of charter companies and regions promoting their waters for your next adventure.  We had a great chat to the guys at the Morocco and have it sitting high on our list of Places To Go.  The facilities there have improved over the last few year, making it a great (and non Schengen) place to winter.  And we can pop up to the Atlas Mountains for a ski!

Tanja Marina in Tangiers, Morocco.  Sheltered, safe, warm and (relatively) inexpensive.
A potential spot to overwinter.

We also visited the Swedish booth.  Oh my, soooo many places to go.

... and sailboats galore.  Many lovely, little daysailers.  If our kitchen overlooked a body of water, one of these would be great fun.

This is a sixteen-strand rope weaving machine.  truly mesmerizing to see in action.

They have some traditional options for when you need to go upwind, too.

Viking style.

Look at the number of guests we could accommodate!

We ordered more fenders as you can never have too many fenders!  We spoke to rope manufacturers about new sheets and looked at dinghies for if we wanted to upgrade ours at some point.

These Certex fenders have worked VERY well for us ... even in 60 knots of wind!

We bought the cool little device.  Called SailAir, it is a small tank that you fill using a bike pump
and will give you about half an hour at shallow depths. 
Perfect for checking anodes, cleaning the hull.

Boot is not just about boats. 
We also met up with friends - Tim and Carol, Marisa and Adriano and Simon and Sally.
An informal gathering of Ocean Cruising Club members!

We spoke to many water maker manufacturers and have decided the
Schenker Zen is the one for us.  We will look to have it installed before
crossing the Atlantic later this year.

Trying on drysuits to figure out the best fit.  We'll need these when we head to Greenland next year

And a wander around Hall 6 - the Super Yachts.  The scale is insane, no photo can do it justice.
The boat on the right of this photo is a 75ft Princess Yacht, the one on the left, a mere 65ft!

The size of this ONE hall (and there are sixteen) is jaw-dropping.

It was mind-boggling that no matter how fancy and how luxurious a yacht seems, it is always possible to add a zero onto the end of the number of the yacht's price and take the next step up.  In the superyacht hall, one of the brokers had a wall of listings for 5 - 15 year old yachts.  It wasn't uncommon to see four, five ... even eight million British Pounds Sterling as a price.  Keep in mind that these yachts would have cost multiples of those numbers when they were new!  There is a great deal of wealth in the world and it surely is not evenly distributed.

Superyacht ads ...

... and not just a few.

I understand that most of these yachts will be purchased by businesses and hired out, but the hiring cost can be in the $60,000 to $1,400,000 per week range.  How does a person even have access to that much money?  Wow.

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