RYA Dinghy Show

2008 RYA Dinghy Show

This year's show was held at Alexandra Palace on the 1st & 2nd March. Chris Whiteside, Steve Leeding and I set up the SigneT stand on the prior Friday afternoon.

Chris's dinghy 'Joker' was on display this year and looked very smart in its red, white and varnish livery. The stand had all its usual display boards with pictures and class information and was located in the west hall just to the right of the main stage area.

Quite a few class and businesses didn't get stand allocations this year because of late application. Amongst them was the Allen half of Holt-Allen who parted company in January of this year.

I didn't think the show was very crowded and the people who were there seemed to already be in the sport. There didn't seem to be many new people around, which was disappointing.

There were plenty of events with presentations on cruising, sailing photography, dinghy design, the road to the Beijing Olympics, clothing, recovery etc. Etc.

The show finished at 5:00pm on Sunday and because of our stand location, right in front of the main West Hall doors, we had priority exit passes. Everything was broken down and loaded into Joker and we were out through those doors at 5:15pm, an all time record.

The show itself is very expensive for small class like SigneT relative to what we get out of it. Costs have been rising 15% year on year for some time. I fear we may be approaching the time when these costs become unsustainable and we have to give serious consideration to the shows worth, from a class point of view.

Mike (SigneT Stand Manager) Baker