Sydney International Boat Show 2018

What do you do when you can’t attend a really important (and very cool) event? Call on your family… Especially the relatives who are due to have a baby on the very day that the event starts. :)

As you might recall, we bought a FP Helia 44, then more recently switched to an Astréa 42. This was “off the plans” in every sense, but shows how comfortable and confident we are with the long heritage of design and build style of Fountaine Pajot. But the thing was, 6 months after purchasing the Astréa we still hadn’t seen one in the flesh, and boy were we were eager to! Sydney is the only boat show in the Asia Pacific region where our boat would be shown this year - but unfortunately it was an international trip that we simply couldn’t afford to take (in both time and money).

So yes, we called on our trusty and enthusiastic Sydney-based family to go along and play us! We arranged tickets through Multihull Solutions (thanks Anna!), and Emily’s sister was very obliging considering she was overdue with her first baby! We had such amazing feedback, pictures and videos sent through to us - something I think we can take for granted these days, especially when it’s so personal and meaningful to you. And even better was the on-the-spot video call to run through all the important features of the boat, so thank you!

How exciting it was to (virtually) see the real thing - not drawings or sales brochures - but to really look at the spaces and see how we would fit in around the boat… Our new home. :)

This was Hull #2 out of the factory; ours will be Hull #48. So there are lots of boats to build in between this one and ours! But our family gave us such a real and frank opinion which was really helpful and insightful. They were thrilled with how it looked and felt, and were very impressed with the size and ample smart storage (the latter a reality of the family genes!).

Finally, we must thank our little niece for hanging out just a bit longer... Very cool stuff indeed.

-Ben