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It actually happened. The boat show that is. And not just the Southampton one. Cannes too. Given that both of last year’s shows were cancelled within days, or in Southampton’s case, hours of their intended opening, we’ve learnt not to take anthing for granted. And yet despite the various Covid-related hoops visitors had to jump through, the pontoons felt reassuringly busy.

There was a little less razzmatazz than usual and some of the stands were a bit smaller but that was more than made up for by the flood of new boats to see. The pontoons were so awash with new launches there was no way we could fit them all in one issue so we’ve given a brief overview of as many Cannes debuts as possible this month while saving the more in-depth sea trials of the most interesting newcomers for the months ahead. On another note, we pride ourselves on covering every aspect of boat ownership from buying your first one to selling your last, and this month we’re sharing stories from both ends of the process. Stephen and Lesley Evans have just taken their first tentative steps into boating with a secondhand 17ft sportsboat while Piers and

Lin du Pré are bidding a fond farewell to their beautiful Fleming 55 after 30 years of owning a wide variety of boats that started with

– you guessed it – a 17ft sportsboat!

DON’T MISS OUT!

If you can’t wait for our magazine reviews of the latest boat show launches you can enjoy video tours of most of them on our Youtube channel. We’ve been posting them at regular intervals since the shows ended so by the time you read this there should be at least a dozen for you to drool over including some real head-turners like the Sunseeker 90 Ocean, Wally WHY200, Custom Line Navetta 30 and Sanlorenzo SX88. So pour yourself a long G&T, buy a lottery ticket and log onto youtube.com/ybwtv