The Old Gaffers at the Beale Park Boat Show 2011

Tuesday 18th October 2011

Every year, there is one bright spot in the calendar for the Old Gaffers' Association, and that is the traditional Boat Show at Beale Park. As it is held early to mid June, it is at the beginning of the wind up towards the Summer season and proves an ideal time and location for us.

The Association take a display tent in the Marine Village. We have a photographic display of our rallies and also plenty of members on hand to talk with show visitors and any potential new members.

We also have a static display of ten or so boats in front of the tent. These are boats in regular use by our members and make a fascinating contrast to the many immaculate brand new boats that others have on display.

Each morning, we launch the boats on the lake and one of our members takes the microphone to give a running commentary, describing the various types of boats that we are sailing and their respective merits.

We do this primarily to keep our club name at the forefront of traditional boating, but also because the show is a good networking place to keep in touch with sailors and other aspects of our kind of boating.

However, we also have our eye on encouraging new people to join our club.  We find that this show is just the place to interest and speak to people who may have been vaguely thinking that they would like a boat but do not really know much about sailing and are naturally concerned that they do not buy the wrong craft for what they would like to do on the water.