This praise weighed twice as much and was almost an "accolade". With over 40 years of experience in the industry, broker Herbert Dahm patted the editor-in-chief on the back during the lunch break: "A top event, my dear. With the cream of the scene. Even better than last year." The first edition of the German Superyacht Conference had already received good word-of-mouth publicity: 100 participants turned into 150, MTU and SpecTec joined boot Düsseldorf and Pantaenius as sponsors. It was also more international: designer Bill Tripp travelled from the USA, his colleague Dick Young from England, Acico Yachts CEO Christian Bolinger from the Netherlands and Fabrizio Sgariglia - Sales Director of Perini Navi - from Italy.
Bolinger, himself a speaker last year, was the first to listen to a true yachting insider in the Elbe dome of the Hotel Hafen Hamburg. Captain Matthias Bosse ("Lady Moura", Swiss Ocean Services) spoke about design ideas and their practicality. Bosse listed gangways, hatches, handrails, galleys and, above all, outside deck areas as common sources of error and caused many a chuckle in the audience with his examples, which will be kept quiet at this point.
Ronald van Hulst, Commercial Director of Royal Huisman, continued the technical side of things. Van Hulst presented what energy management on sailing yachts could look like in the future and was literally mobbed during the subsequent break - many participants were keen to find out more about turbines and hydro generators.
You can read the full text in BOOTE EXCLUSIV issue 3/2013.
