Excel Boat Show a waste of time.

Went yesterday (Saturday). As others have said, there wasn't too much to interest pure dinghy sailors inside- the Laser and RS stands (and obviously the glass-fibre shunning Topper stand) were focused around their plastic boats- incidentally, I'd never before noticed the semi-circular groove in the foredeck of the RS Tera, are they planning to put a kit on it?- with anything really performance orientated towards the back. Hobie seemed to have a bigger stand for their kayaks than their cats. Hartley had left the fun boats at home (no Kestrel, Osprey or Cherub) and Comet, well, they don't do interesting. I did have a succesful shopping trip, and signed up for a magazine subscription.

Outside, where I spent most of the day volunteering at the B14, was better. We had a good position for watching the Ovington Grand Prix racing- this was a definite highlight. The set up was good, with the start line postioned nicely off a dockside pontoon with only the narrowboats upwind- no yacht masts or Sunseekers to get in the road (though the bridge obscured the windward mark). It was good to watch, with places (other than 1st place in the Mustos) changing regularly, and some OK commentary- this certainly helped gather attention to what was going on. The course and start sequence was simple too- the flags being a class logo at 3 minutes, then flags with "2 min" and "1 min". It did, however, look like a complete pig to sail in, an observation confirmed later by those sailing in it.