Croatia Online - Split Boat Show

In our humble opininion, this was the best boat at the show. A classic, traditionally built, wooden yacht that was made in Croatia during the Homeland War. We interviewed the skipper to find a fascinating story behind this accomplishment; a living example of passion, vision and endeavour overcoming the biggest of obstacles - war, bureaucracy, lack of skills, lack of raw materials to name but a few. We'll be preparing a full report in the weeks to come but if you can't wait, have a look at our earlier posting on the private sector of the Croatian shipbuilding industry - Croatia Online - Yacht Building in Croatia - to find out more about the builders, Heliyachts, and the yacht, Galatea, which is available for charter.

The Croatian press were most interested in the match racing, featuring Russell Coutts and his one design racing yachts. Russell and his yachts were first publically introduced to Croatian Boat Shows at the Biograd Boat Show in October 2006 (see earlier posting Croatia Online - Russell Coutts at the Biograd Boat Show, October 2006) and follow this link for a full report on the results of the races - http://www.sail-world.com/index.cfm?SEID=2&Nid=32841&SRCID=0&ntid=0&tickeruid=0&tickerCID=0

Le Meridien Hotel Lav had a lively stand featuring their Casino and dancing girls every few hours. Unfortunate in terms of noise and disruption for the stands next door but very entertaining for visitors.

As for overall impressions of the show, the organisation was better and the weather was great - an unbelievable 9 days of blue skies and sunshine. It was unfortunate that Split Riva was still under construction for the show.The organisation was only marred when the security staff at the main entrance changed this weekend and decided to turn into gestapo. Rosie, our dog, who has earned her pass on the stand for the past three years was suddenly refused entry unless she agreed to go out and buy a muzzle and wear it coming in. As a truly vicious Springer Spaniel she simply rolled over and wagged her tail in amusement while her owners made an argument for common sense to prevail.

We'll be publishing a few pictures from the show in our next posting and then we'll be back to non boat show matters.