The Olympics is over, the Royal Jubilee is done and our Christmas trees are dying in the street beneath a freezing winter fog. Our bank accounts are empty, our New Year’s Resolutions are abandoned and we still have three months until the boating season begins. As ever, January has a habit of making the world look peculiarly bleak, and yet for the boaters among us, all is not lost…

Buster XXL

Are aluminimum boats set to take their rightful place in the UK?



Reasons to be cheerful
The world is full of products we could only have dreamed of 10 years ago. We have broadband radar (which can pick out a zip on a fleece at a thousand yards through a blizzard), colossal superyachts that push the boundaries of what is possible and engines that are virtually silent at tickover. And with the London Boat Show (see London Boat Show Adds Final Touches) about to open its doors, we can expect plenty more diverting new gadgetry - most notably in the form of joystick control for outboard engines and electric propulsion systems that add some all-important sex appeal to their much-vaunted practical merits. But of course, the show hasn’t yet started and the year has barely begun, so to kick things off, here are five bold predictions for the year ahead:

(1) In a world where computer games are big business (and 50 per cent of the developed world is contentedly obese), 2013 will bring a ‘Virtual Boating Experience’ that you can enjoy from home without the need to own a boat, buy a tank of fuel or heave your expanding backside from its chair;

(2) As financial confidence returns to the UK, broad-beamed deck boats will arrive on our shores in far greater numbers, making bow riders seem like very poor value for money by comparison;

(3) The continuing crusade for multi-purpose craft will see aluminium (see Buster XXL: an Aluminium Sportsboat From Finland for an example) and polyethylene take their rightful place in the UK as mainstream boat building alternatives to GRP;

(4) One of the major manufacturers will take the lead in the outboard race with a new 400hp engine;

(5) Boating cliques will be abandoned in favour of good will to all men, enabling yachtsmen and jetskiers to fraternise as though they are members of the same species.

In any case, it’s time for me to head to the show and keep myself cheerful with dreams of cutting edge hardware on aquamarine seas. I suggest you do the same…

Written by: Alex Smith
Alex Smith is a journalist, copywriter and magazine editor with a long history in boating and a happy addiction to the water. He’s worked on boats, lived on boats, bought boats, sold boats and – when he’s not actually on board a boat – he can generally be found in his Folkestone office, tapping away at the computer and gazing out to sea.