Vancouver BC boat show

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

Who is going today? We lucked out by doing both Seattle and BC. Lucky day! Now where is my shopping list

 

[rsn48]

I was planning to go however I ended up volunteering to take a dog in for two weeks as her owner had to go away for some therapy. I was primarily going for the seminars as by the time you pay for the ferry round trip from Vancouver Island, pay for hotel room and meals, a deal has to be extraordinary to make up for all those expenses.

I usually try to take in a few of Jeff Cotes talks and then others to brush up on skills, like navigation, weather forecasting, etc. Fortunately for me, Jeff posts his boat show talks on his web site. His Garmin talk I already posted here, this talk from another boat show, I think last years Vancouver show. He will be giving a talk on Simrad, Lowrance and B&G, on Furuno, and on Raymarine so if you have one of those systems you might enjoy listening to what is available now.

And right now, I'm in boat show withdrawals. It is my birthday today, 7 February, and I go to Craft Beer sort of close to the show, where you get your age off in discount for both food and brew on your birthday - you will be carded! - but kind of fun at 72. Today I would have had 72 % taken off my bill. And now I'm really in "boat show withdrawals." I'm Scottish enough to get excited by this discount.

PS: If you have an electrical/electronic question/problem, you can hit Jeff up at his booth, he makes himself available as much as he can.

 

[rochepoint]

Happy Birthday!!!!!

 

[Ted]

Happy Birthday "kid"

 

[C lectric]

Happy Birthday from here too.


I went last year to the Van. Boat Show so am skipping this year.

 

[rsn48]

Thanks for the birthday wishes.

 

[JDCAVE]

I spent 2 short days at the Vancouver Show this year. Same as the past 7-8 years. I was surprised at the poor attendance this year relative to say 5 years ago. A number of vendors are no longer attending, Stryker Electronics for example. The Furuno Rep told me the owner of Stryker mentioned he would not be attending.

Next year perhaps I’ll attend the Seattle show...

 

[Conrad]

We flew in Wednesday, took in a bit in the evening, and spent all day Thursday and Friday wandering mostly the booths on the concourse level. As my brother was interested in electronics - which he ultimately purchased, a lot of time was spent on comparisons. I was quite happy with the experience - first in 8 years - as there was lots to see and drool over.
The best for me of course was the floating portion on Granville Island, even though it was pouring rain for much of the time. Had a good tour of the new oil spill vessel, quite interesting and well thought out. A year old and yet to be put to use, which is a very good thing.
The Fleming 65 almost sank from all of my drool....
But the vendors were saying, as of Friday afternoon, that attendance was way down. The weather had been terrible so that may have had an impact. Saturday was warm and sunny, so that may have helped, but we were heading home by then.

 

[rsn48]

I strongly suspect the coronavirus scare might have something to do with lower attendance. I kind of suspected attendance might be down because of people's reluctance to be around large crowds.

Officials involved with the Summer Olympics coming up are fearful attendance will fall off dramatically.

 

[Alaskan Sea-Duction]

When you compare the Seattle or Vancouver shows the Seattle is bigger, but I like the way the vendors were set up in Vancouver.

I did buy an iCom VHF hand held. Nice radio