The Southampton Boat Show begins this weekend and Sheryl & I are going! We went in 2007 and quite enjoyed it. The show is a pretty big in-water boat show and its a nice venue.

This year Northshore will be introducing the new Southerly 49.

Of course we will also be dropping by the factory to see how our 49 is coming along!! I expect big changes since we saw it in early July. The 49 takes almost 6 months to build so we are just approaching the half-way point.

We also like the Boat Show in that it lets us look at all the latest equipment. We are just finalising the design on the electronics with Raymarine and very keen to see what is new since we set up our Southerly 42. New versions of the chartplotter, AIS, and radar are available I think - will report back!

We are also looking at LED lighting. This has been an area where I have been severely disappointed in the past :-( I have bought a number of LED bulbs in attempts to save power but almost all have been either very dim, sickly blue or have died prematurely. The picture above was my best of many bulbs tested - it is almost as bright as the 10watt halogen it replaced and is just slightly greener. Unfortunately it doesn’t work with the dimmer we have on the saloon lights.

I am forced to say LED replacement bulbs are not the way to go. I think LED lighting finally does work but at least for marine lighting it doesn’t make sense to buy a bulb to put in an old fitting. The best is to get an LED light bulb and fixture designed from the ground up for LED technology. Anyway, we shall see what’s at the show.

If any readers are going to be at the Southampton Boat Show, please come and say hi. Sheryl and I will be at the Northshore booth various times over the first weekend (September 10-12).