Friday 30 November 2007

Earls Court Boat Show 2007


To the metropolis for the new Earls Court Boat Show, a brave but probably doomed attempt to wrench the boating community back from Docklands.
Amazingly, the show had a special feature devoted to rowing, but it wasn't rowing for pleasure. It was rowing for agony. In short, transoceanic rowing.
I've never been able to understand it. Rowing across an ocean is like a stretch in Devil's Island with worse food. The labour is never ending, the sun relentless, the sores unhealing, the view an unchanging level horizon punctuated by terrifying, trouser-staining tropical storms.
God knows why they do it.
Here's a general view of the exhibit. In the background is the James Caird, famous for Ernest Shackleton's epic voyage to safety when his Antarctic exploration vessel Endurance sank in 1916. More later.

2 comments:

Baddaddy said...

It doesn't look very crowded, does it? What was the attendance like?

Gav

Chris Partridge said...

I was there for the press'n'preview day and it was rather empty and lacking any sort of buzz, I'm sorry to say.