Singapore Yacht Show, day 2. Wide open for business.
by Guy Nowell, Sail-World Asia 15 Apr 2018 14:28 AEST
Shimmer and sparkle at The Sentosa Ball. Singapore Yacht Show 2018 © Guy Nowell
You can’t have a Yacht Show without a bit of glam entertainment to make everything go off with aplomb and a sense of occasion. Last night’s Sentosa Ball did not disappoint. With a spotlight on the biggest glitter ball we’ve ever seen, the ballroom at the W Sentosa became a sparkling midnight cave that hosted a charity auction conducted by HotLots, an energetic floorshow from Valerie Murzak, and of course a perfectly-curated dinner from the chefs of the W itself. It was an occasion that brought together over 300 guests including yacht owners and industry captains.
Boat shows are traditionally the moment for brands announce and show off their new products. Sometimes it’s just a concept drawing or a model designed to attract oohs and aahs, and sometimes it’s the real floating thing. The Sunreef Open 40 makes its World Première here at the Singapore Yacht Show: it’s definitely real, but it is also designed to raise the eyebrows.
Take a catamaran hull, paint it metallic gold, add a forward seating well and sunpads aft, three suspension seats in the midships command position, and attach a pair of 435hp IPS600s, and you have a souped-up platform that will move you anywhere at a top speed of 40kts.
It’s a day boat, pure and simple. Edgy, boxy, lines and an absolute minimum of clutter, and huge storage space for watersports gear (think wakeboards, diving equipment) under the sunpads make this a fun transporter. There’s a shower and toilet in one hull (mind your head, so to speak) and a very slim berth in the other, but this is not meant to be an overnight affair. Sunreef used to build everything in alumimium, but have long since converted to composites. There’s a promise of a foiling version of this vessel, capable of 60kts, so hold on to your hat. Sunreefs are always customisable (just ask!) and you can have this item in a version with a forward cabin instead of the dining well, but that would defeat the object of the exercise: flat out fast fun – zoom off to the beach, zoom back again, and make a statement in both directions.
More boats at the lower end of the LOA scale: the Axopar 37 and 28 are another slice of express transport. With steep-vee entry RIB-style hulls made even more slippery with double steps, you can be fully powered up and still carrying on a perfectly normal conversation inside the air-conditioned cabin. Now you’re talking – really! A v-berth below with head and shower, make either of these nippers very much more than a day boat. Axopars are made in Poland and have acquired a bit of a cult following – the 28 ran to 700 units, and customers from the USA were booking build slots online and against the clock. It would be very much easier to find one through Derani yachts – but the 28 at the Singapore Yacht Show is already sold and the 37 won’t be hanging around very much longer. “They sell almost as fast as we can access them,” reports agent Hakan Lange.
There are some very big companies out there in the boat-building world. The biggest of all counted by production units is the Beneteau Group, boasting an epic 10,000 year, and happily occupying a spot in every niche in the boating ecosystem. Offhand, we can’t think of a corner of the market where this company doesn’t exist, from superyachts to ski boats The SYS provided a good opportunity for Beneteau Group to talk the media through the entire range of its products, and brought along both group CEO Herve Gastinel and Carla Demaria, President of Monte Carlo Yachts – a substantial endorsement of the Singapore Yacht Show, and a demonstration of the importance that the boating industry attaches to the event.
The Singapore Yacht Show continues 3.00-9.00pm Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th April.
www.singaporeyachtshow.com