Annapolis Sailboat Show Rocks the Docks
The Annapolis Sailboat Show rocked this year, with five sunny, temperate days of gentle breezes, lots of boats and lots of sailors. Our annual pilgrimage to this sailboat mecca is always inspiring and rewarding. It’s the largest, and to the best of our knowledge, only all-sailboat show in the world. It never disappoints. The sailing world has evolved over our past 30 years of attending, but the energy and culture of sailing remain at the core the show.
We did have a moment to visit with circumnavigating phenom Cole Brauer in the Mustang booth. Amazingly, she told us she connected with her first offshore race, the Pacific Cup, in 2018, when her then-boyfriend showed her a letter in Latitude 38 from a boat looking for crew. That started her connections to crewing, and she ended up racing to Hawaii aboard Jack Tibbetts’ Schock 41 Defiance. It’s been a stunning rise to fame and success from there.
She exudes the positive energy she exhibited to her 500-thousand-plus fans on Instagram as she demonstrated the power of a determined woman to succeed in the rarefied universe of singlehanded sailors. Her perseverance earned her a second-place finish in the Global Solo Challenge, once again breaking the mold of the perceptions of women in sailing.
Sailors and boat manufacturers come from all over the world to check out the boats and to connect with sailing, often late into the evening. The show is in the heart of historic downtown Annapolis, which would be a fun visit even without the show, but it’s only made better by the presence of even more sailors and sailboats.
We walked into the Belize Sailing Vacations booth only to find Cliff Wilson, who grew up sailing at RYC, with his wife Rachael plus the Bay Area’s Norman Davant and Teri Moore. Cliff and Rachael were there for the first time, exhibiting for their Belize charter company, while Norman and Teri had joined many boats in the Chesapeake this time of year waiting for hurricane season to end before returning to cruising the Bahamas aboard their Seawind Crazy Love. Norman has sailed with the Wilsons for many years in Belize and highly recommends it.
Once again, Annapolis is a great place to reconnect with sailing friends roaming the world.
One trend that continues to stand out as you roam the docks of Annapolis is the scale of the boats. Over the past 30 years they’ve only gotten bigger, better equipped and more expensive. This has been great at helping manufacturers grow revenue, but we’re not sure it grows participation in sailing.
Plus, you’ve heard this before: There are far more catamarans. The booms on the two biggest cats looked as if they were about 20 feet over the water. The monohulls are far larger, and the average price of the boats at the show has to be well over $500,000. The boats are stunning and innovative, and demonstrate ongoing creative innovation to make sure no one has to sail in discomfort. They say you can’t take it with you, but these boats do their best at making it possible.
The Chesapeake and the mooring field off the show are packed with cruisers waiting for hurricane season to end so their insurance companies will allow them to head south again. While they wait, many of them join the temporary workforce that’s needed to run the back-to-back Annapolis Power and Sailboat shows.
Numerous other cruisers are cruising the docks and tents to upgrade their boats or solve issues before they continue on. The tents are filled with numerous vendors of hardware, electronics and furling gear, and experts from the national and international marine industry who can answer just about any question you can throw at them. If you’re looking for it, it can be found at the Annapolis Boat Show.