Beaulieu Boat Jumble 2016 - sponsored by Practical Boat Owner magazine. This is an opportunity to clear out from the loft or garage all those boating items that you thought one day would come in useful but still find them sitting there some years down the line. Beaulieu is a great location for this event and buyers come from far and wide searching for a bargain on their shopping list. It is a great way to economise on items needed for the coming boating season. An old boat never dies so there is always someone wanting to restore it or just keep it afloat and it is here that anything from a bilge pump to an engine can be bought and taken home as the photos show. Bulky items are taken back to the car by large pick up trucks. Exhibitors vary from car boot sellers with rock bottom prices to commercial stands who make it their business to dispose of chandlery items at good prices. Some of the more interesting sellers are those selling up to go off sailing or who have been in the game for some time and want to quit. Some have acquired too much unused stuff, and are making space for the next lot. One couple I met for example were clearing out to go off, firstly to the Caribbean and then to the North West Passage, so everything including the skis was up for sale. Another couple were conducting an auction: they had bought a large vessel in Ireland, taken it across Biscay and round into the Mediterranean and decided to gut it and rebuild. Neatly scattered over the ground was an interesting selection of goodies more often seen on a passage-maker-type vessel, a Furuno radar, a saltwater/freshwater maker, a refrigeration plant, large Lewmar winches, and galley equipment amongst many other items. The couple were keeping a log of all the offers made so if you asked how much for the winches, on consulting the log “we have an offer of £300 for the pair” and for the radar “£700 offered so far”. The area covered by sellers this year was the smallest I have seen it, but there did seem to be an increase in the car-boot-type sellers. Absent were those offloading huge items, which in the past would have been large diesel engines, sterndrives, P brackets, prop shafts and commercial fishing equipment. There was however one large mooring buoy complete with rusty mooring chain, the same type as used on the nearby Beaulieu River. It required two people to carry it to the pick up point for transportation back to their vehicle. Much of the stock from the commercial chandlery type stalls was still for sale at the end of the day, and some stand owners who had come from far afield were down on sales. The Classic Motor Boat Association had an impressive display of motorboats including two Chris Crafts, one of which was a lovely Barracuda. This was a kit boat for home building, it was a boat you could assemble in your garage and the one on display was reported by its owner to be the only one known to exist in the UK. There was a lovely Riva Rudy upholstered in aquamarine coloured vinyl and an unmistakable Son Levi Hydrosonic built at the Partenocraft yard in Naples, recently restored by its justly proud owner. He was so inspired by the Soni Levi Corsair that searching for something similar he found this gorgeous craft, spotted the potential, and has now restored it to perfection. It looks in appearance like a smaller version of the famous Surfury, also from the Partenocraft boatyard. My shopping list included a boarding ladder (£5), a new trailer lighting board (£5), a length of kevlar rope (50p), a fluorescent outboard engine cover (£5). Not on my list but a good buy I spotted was a beautiful set of marine watercolour prints of classic yachts all signed by the original artist. I met many boating friends throughout the day and it will be in my diary again for next year.
