Dingy Show

This year the SigneT Class Owners Association had a stand in the Great Hall at the show. The dinghy on the stand was ST916, built in the Rutland Water area mid 2003 but had hardly been used since. She was a vision in blue, even the sails, just the sort of display boat I love!

Steve Leeding and I set up on Friday afternoon. We had a good 'pitch' right in amongst a number of chandlery shops. On Saturday I opened up but at 10:00am I had to go to the Commodores Conference. By the time I got back at 2:00pm the stand was heaving. Chandlery locations at the show are always high traffic areas and the SCOA position was benefiting from this.

Keith and Madeline Hatton and Steve & Jonathan Leeding were holding things down, ably assisted by Richard Cannon.

A couple of young men took more than a passing interest in ST28 which was on the second hand list. Richard subsequently informed me that one of them, a Mr. Nick Dodge, did indeed buy the boat from it's owner at Aquarius SC and it's new home will be Stewartby SC.

The show ended at 6:00pm and, from what I saw, was pretty well attended despite the departure this year of the Windsurfing community to Excel in Docklands.

Sunday started slowly but by midday was pretty busy. Pat & Jenny Overs and Roy Melsom were joined mid morning by ST916's owners the Page family. What is it about wooden boats; people have just got to touch them. Interestingly we now seem to be nearly the only wooden boat left at the show and definitely the only kit boat around.

During the afternoon two girls pitched up on the stand and announced they were well into building a Fyne Boats SigneT kit and how should they go about getting a registration number. Jenny's face was a picture. Fyne hadn't advised her of the sale. Needless to say she got right on the case.

Due to our position getting out at the end of the day looked like it wouldn't be easy. However in the event, while Nigel Page went to get the road trailer, we broke the stand down, loaded everything into the boat and got out while everybody else was still faffing around.

After getting Nigel away and loading up Pat's car with the display material Roy and I were enjoying the delights of the North Circular less than an hour after starting the breakdown. That's very fast! Pity the North Circular wasn't. What a team!

My thanks to everybody who worked on the stand over the weekend, to Steve, Pat and Jen for all their help before and during the show and to the Page family for donating the dinghy. 'Scarper'; a worthy representative of the class. Look out for her at the Nationals this year.

So that's it, the show will be at Ally Pally next year which I'm told is the first of a possible three year deal. I guess the only drawback is that the show always falls on my birthday. On the plus side Lyn usually buys one of my presents there, so it's not all bad! This year it was a much needed pair of wet boots.

Mike (SCOA Stand Organiser) Baker