Concept Boat

It was a nice surprise what happened in the London boat show, and how British boat builder Fairline made a move ahead with an interesting new concept sport boat, the Esprit.  For those who know Fairline which I am sure there is a lot of you here, they know that the builder has always been conservative with a modern approach in building and designing its models.  A formula which has worked well for the British boat builder in its forty years or so of it's history.

The Esprit concept changes all this and sees Fairline take the forward seat in material testing in both construction and fitting out, an innovative console, and a new design approach that of a sports boat style cruiser. This last bit was the biggest surprise since Fairline has never ventured into this territory and its Sport Cruisers have always been a family friendly affair with nice accommodation layout below. It will be interesting to see if the Esprit will be produced and how clients will react to this.

Concept boats are not very much if any in the making in the boating industry, and it was nice to see a boat builder in this case Fairline venture into this. Is also interesting, more so then when one thinks that Fairline is at the moment, the smallest of the big three United Kingdom builders, delivering about one hundreds boat per year. Nonetheless Fairline was pro-active and did what few builders do, going with a concept boat from a clean sheet.  Would be nice to see other builders venture more into this in the future.