I was over at the London Boat Show yesterday seeing lots of people in the boat world who have an interest in sharing. I went for the first time last year and, not being a remotely boatie sort of person, was a bit overwhelmed.
Well yours2share now has over 65 ads for boat shares and I’ve learnt a bit over the last year, I can differentiate between Bavaria and Beneteau, just. So as well as meeting up with people, I wanted to have a good look at all the sail and power boats to get an idea of the boatie “pecking” order. Well I had a good look and to the uninitiated it isn’t always very obvious.
So when I visited John Mallows on his stand “myboatshare“. I asked for a little help to explain. Ummmm, he said, well you pay more money for both performance and for prestige. Some boats are all about performance and some predominantly prestige (they generally perform well to). It’s rather like cars, Porsche is all about performance and Bentley is about prestige. A Hallberg-Rassy is like a Jaguar whereas a Moody is like an Audi.
We then had a highly enjoyable conversation equating all the major boat makes to car manufacturers, and I think I now understand a lot more. So what did we come up with? Well for the sailing yachts, in no particular order at all:
Elan = BMW
Hanse = Ford/Vauxhall
Beneteau = Ford/Vauxhall
Jeanneau – Volkswagon
Nicolson = Range Rover
Sadler (old) = Wolseley
Sadler (new) = Kia
Westerley = Volvo
Southerly = TVR
Bavaria = Fiat
And for the power boats, again in no order
Sunseeker = Porsche
Princess = BMW top of the range
Sealine BWM M3
Fairline = Audi
Boston Whaler = Audi TT
Any rib = pickup truck, complete with dog and country music
Cranchi = Austin Powers shag-mobile
Now you will appreciate that these are highly subjective views, and I expect some manufacturers and a few owners will disagree with their “car” rating. I’d love to hear your views. Either on manufacturers that we’ve missed, or where you think we’ve got it completely wrong.