"I think it's speaking to me," she murmured, running a dangerous-looking fingernail along the sleek, €100,000 paint job of a €700,000 43ft Sunseeker Superhawk - the kind of boat that requires visitors to don little white shoe covers, as though venturing into an operating theatre. Kathy Sheridanreports from the RDS
What with "hubby" still palpitating after the heartstopping schools rugby joust up the road followed by a few quick ones in Kiely's AND this being St Valentine's Day, ALL coinciding with the boat show opening in the RDS, well . . . it HAD to be a kind of message, hadn't it? And €700,000 is not, y'know, all that much when you think about it. Eddie Jordan just bought a 135-footer triple-decker Sunseeker at the London boat show for €13 million. They would have had it on exhibition in the RDS but sadly, it wouldn't fit in the door. As it is, they had to bolt on a marquee to the Simmonscourt building to accommodate the boats they have.
Even without Eddie, the partners in MGN, Sunseeker's Irish agency, Martin and Gerry Salmon and Garrett Molloy, managed to sell €15 million worth of boats to Irish customers at the same London show.
Big builders and developers are heavily in the buyer mix, of course, as always (Gerry Gannon came to public attention last year when his boat went on fire and sank). A banker notes however, that small builders, "the kind no one ever heard of but who've been hiving away a few million here and there for 10 years", are also well represented. And no, since you ask, there is no sign of a slump at this end of the business. Martin Salmon predicts a turnover reaching €16-€17 million in the "next model" year.
"The men in this country who have money will always have money," says Garrett Molloy. "They're investing outside Ireland now. There's no more they can do here."
For those who may be wondering why these fancy beasts are not gracing the pages of VIP and its ilk, it's because they rarely make it on to Irish shores. Of the 19 vessels sold by MGN in the past 30 months, only four have "come home to Ireland", says Molloy - "and they're the small ones". Five vessels, costing from €1 million up, went to Irish owners in Portugal.
The banker puts this charming discretion down to a certain shyness about flaunting assets under the noses of the Irish Revenue, as well as "not wanting anyone to know your business".
He is a happy banker around boats. The nice thing about boats is that, unlike cars, which keep depreciating, boats depreciate for a few years and then stabilise. Banks are therefore happy to lend money for a boat and are reckoned to be among the main drivers of new business . . . which is just as well, because the problem is that when you start looking at these sleek creatures, a million or two, is not, y'know, all that much either.
Terry Smallwood, managing director of Kelvin Hughes, a marine book distributor and chart supplier for "Superyachts" (must be 70ft at least to qualify), recalls a visit to a 270ft yacht in Antibes where he asked about the mysterious little chromium domes that had sprouted since his previous visit. They had been installed to house the owner's Harley-Davidson, which was on board merely to speed him from one end of the boat to the other.
Smallwood reckons there are around five such yachts in Irish ownership, including one owned by a rock star.
You should be aware that when boat people tell you, straight-faced, that there is a "crisis" in the business, this is not a "crisis" as most people know it.
A boating "crisis" is when there are not enough berths for all the boats. Cork harbour is full; Dublin Bay is full; Howth is full. There are 22 marinas in Ireland and still not enough. "This is the Celtic Tiger made manifest," says David O'Brien of Afloat magazine. "There is no purer example of the Celtic Tiger than the rising tide that has lifted boat sales." The lads in MGN, for example, call their €80,000-€100,000 models their "bread and butter" boats.
And yet, it's only fair to point out that while most boat show gawpers will drift towards the "million euro stand" (MGN's Superhawk beside an "onyx" Aston Martin upholstered in "sandstorm" leather) and dawdle over the boating version of bling, the theme of this year's show is "Getting Started".
So yes, a €1,000 dinghy may look a tad tame beside a Superhawk (itself a mere sparrow compared to Eddie Jordan's eagle) but it's a start.
Much of the sales power is being trained on SSIA savers, so expect to be introduced to cute little vessels like the Maxims, from €26,000 up, or the four-metre Rigid Inflatable Board, with a road trailer, "priced to suit the average punter's pocket", at €20,000. Or you could always buy a T-shirt with an old sea dog on the front.