Boat Brands and Companies at Goodwood Festival of Speed
The 2019 Festival of Speed saw an exciting selection of boating companies exhibiting within the brand-new Marine Section. Go Earth Ltd Stand 248 Go Earth offers a variety of services to its clients who are considering buying a recreational boat. These range from an initial, no obligation advice and consultation right the way through the entire process until the client has taken possession of their new pride and joy. We act for the buyer, not the seller. Go Earth are known for their expertise and outstanding service to their clients, helping them procure boats or yachts with the minimum of risk, hassle, time and cost. As regular readers of Boat Trader know, Go Earth also contributes a number of knowledgeable articles each month to Boat Trader (and occasionally to other publications). They cover multiple aspects around buying a boat, and are intended to be genuinely helpful to the boat buyer. As Go Earth has curated a number of boating companies for the festival, they are offering a free advice tent. If you visit their stand (248), they will gladly provide you with a ‘goody bag’ full of useful information from the other boating companies, plus a free copy of Boat Trader. If you have any queries that other boating companies might be able to assist with, then they will helpfully point you in the right direction. Go Earth will also be showing its innovative automatic fender system. This system removes the hassle associated with deploying and storing fenders. Also, there will be some festival only very special deals on Indespension trailers – offering a significant discount. These trailers cover everything from boats to cars (including covered trailers) to motorbikes, and even livestock! Bates Wharf Stand 410 Bates Wharf are a very well-established family business based in London & the South Coast. They can offer a superb range of new and used boats from these prestigious recommended boat manufacturers: Fairline Chris-Craft Bayliner Brig Beneteau Sessa SACS RAND They offer a personal service, whether you’re buying your first boat or upgrading to your next one. Bates Wharf will provide a day to remember at the festival and welcome you to their boat showrooms. Bates Wharf pride themselves on their high level of customer service and with four established offices in Chertsey, Eastbourne, Poole & Southampton, which are all open seven days a week, you can view the boat of your choice every day! They look forward to meeting you at the festival. At the show they expect to be exhibiting Chris-Craft Launch 27 and Bayliner E5. Please feel free to come along and talk boats. Mercury Stand 403 The biggest and latest Mercury outboard engines will be showcased for the first time at this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, including the Mercury Racing Verado 400R and the new V8 platform released last year. Visitors to the Mercury stand will have the chance to get up close to the latest RIBs and tenders from boat builders such as Pascoe International and Axopar and benefit from expert technical advice; either from boat builders or the Mercury UK team. For more information, please see our additional article in Boat Trader magazine. Multihull World Stand 256 Multihull World is an international Yacht brokerage specialising in catamaran and trimaran sales, repairs, maintenance and training and was established over 30 years ago. MHW act on behalf of multihull owners seeking to sell their vessels and on behalf of buyers looking to enjoy the benefits of catamaran and trimaran sailing. The wide range of designs available, enormous variations in design criteria and specific features of each vessel make our experienced staff a highly valued asset in selecting the right boat for each buyer sailing agenda. They are all experienced, passionate multihull owners, each with over 20 years experience. This allows us to provide all the benefits of a professional brokerage service with an exceptional pool of knowledge on these sailing yachts. We sell new and pre-owned vessels, acting as sole new boat UK agents for Outreme and Rapier performance catamarans (both designs have won their respective classes in international yacht races) and Broadblue and Gemini cruising catamarans, designs which prioritise crew comfort and security above all else, together with Corsair trimarans, suppliers of fast and energetic performance trimarans. Each marque is outstanding in its own field. The Broadblue range is the only production catamaran still manufactured by a British Company – if you prefer to buy British then look no further!! We are all excited to introduce visitors at the Goodwood Festival of Speed to these high performance and luxurious sailing yachts. Boat Club Trafalger Stand 276 One of the most important things in life is making memories with family and friends, Boat Club Trafalgar helps you make that happen. Boat Club Trafalgar offers you Hassle Free, Unlimited Boating, for a simple monthly fee and as a member you have the choice of using a large range of premium boats anywhere within the Solent. You have all the fun of boating without the costs and responsibilities of being a boat owner. With our varied pool of boats we’ve got boats that will meet your needs for any occasion. Our dedicated team will take care of cleaning, maintenance, servicing, storage and insurance leaving you free to spend all your leisure time out on the water with no worries. Boat Club Trafalgar is convenient, just book online and once you arrive you simply get on board and drive away, it’s that simple, all you pay for is your fuel. We provide all the training and support that you need. Come and visit us on stand 276 to find out how you can enjoy boating, without the cost of owning at the same time have a coffee and find out more about our amazing one-off Goodwood Festival of Speed special offer! Dads’s Boats Stand 306 Introducing The Pedal Boat. A unique design, 50 years in the making, which allows two people to face each other and both pedal forwards in comfort.
Getting Started in Boating
Dipping your toe in the water Never been boating before? Thinking of buying a boat? But not sure if it is for you? In that case, we have two useful suggestions to help you get started: Try an on-board experience for a short period Get independent, professional advice on what sort of boat would best suit you Try before you buy – onboard experiences There are numerous options you can try at a relatively modest cost. Go Earth offers the following ‘on-boat experiences’. The lowest cost is simply to stay on a 34 foot sports cruiser that we have moored in a beautiful part of north Wales. The boat will sleep up to 4 people in 2 cabins, each with a comfortable double bed. In effect you are using the boat as a small apartment and can stay from 2 days upwards and use it as a base for a different type of holiday experience. Note that driving the boat is not included in this package. At a slightly higher cost a 43 flybridge sports cruiser is available, with a skippered short trip up a beautiful part of the Thames is available. Again you can stay on the boat for 2 or more nights; with plenty of space for up to 4 people to stay overnight. Moving up the cost scale, but still reasonably economical, we offer a great charter in a power catamaran from the south of France – Cannes or St Tropez. This has 4 cabins, sleeping up to 8 people; and a skipper is included. In this option, the skipper stays with you all the time. The skipper knows the area very well, and can take you to some really great restaurants around the Nice/ Cannes / St Tropez area. This option is certainly much cheaper than many other commercial charters. We can also offer a bespoke service – if you discuss your requirements with us, we can design a cost-effective package to suit you. Any of the above will give you a real – and a pleasant – experience, and provide a strong foundation for ‘next steps’ . At a minimum you should have a nice short break – so think of it as a holiday. Introductory training If you want to regard this as a real learning exercise, and if your current knowledge of boating is limited, each of the above can be combined with our day’s course – Introduction to Boating. This is a combination we really recommend if you are new to boating. It is a good and sensible investment of your time and money to ensure that you make the best decisions and help you avoid any expensive mistakes. If your ‘crew’ (such as a partner) is also new, then maybe this is a great opportunity for both of you to discover boating, so this becomes a shared experience.Of course, if you are really new to boating, you will not be ready yet (or safe enough) to take a boat out by yourself. So, following one of the on-board experiences, you should take one of the many training courses available. Go Earth, as part of its course, can provide you with a training plan to ensure that you get the required level of future training. Refining your thinking The advantage of getting some actual experience on a boat is that it helps you think about all sorts of things that you might not have considered before. Below is a small random selection illustrating the sorts of things you might need to think about. Beds. Yes, beds. If you are going to stay on a boat overnight or longer, does the cabin layout and the bed suit you? For example:- Do you want to be able to get out of the bed either side? The smaller boats may have one side of the bed against the bow or a bulkhead, so the person sleeping that side has to climb over the other if, for example, they want to go to the loo in the middle of the night. Do you read in bed at night? If so, is there enough space above the bed for you to sit up in bed. In cabins in the bow, on smaller boats, there might not be enough room to sit up. On the smaller aft cabin boats, the cabin may be spacious, but the headroom above the bed may be limited. Check this before you buy. Friends staying? If you plan to have friends staying, you may want cabins that provide a degree of privacy. Do all the cabins have doors? On smaller sports boats, there may only be a curtain. Some smaller sports cruisers have the mattress on the floor (aka deck!). Not a problem at all if you are fairly agile; but it could be an issue if you are not. Ease of crewing. On motor boats, the main activities you may need the crew (such as your partner) to perform are putting the fenders out, and getting them back in. For this you need at least one good side deck or (on smaller sports boats) an easy to climb through opening front window. Check this out before you buy. Also, you ideally want somewhere to easily store the fenders – or at least somewhere to mount fender baskets that you may want to buy. There are many, many other practical things that you will learn about boating by having these on-board experiences coupled with suitable training. Go Earth will help you all along the way. Getting advice We recommend getting advice from a variety of sources. However, at Go Earth, we are the only professional and independent company dedicated to providing professional advisory and procurement advice to the boat buyer. A chat with us is free of cost, hassle or commitment.