Getting Fair Isle ready for her next adventure, in the yard and at METS | Ep156

There's steady progress in the yard but we do have to wait for the perfect weather window to paint the top sides so we are finding other things to do during the windy rainy spells. This week our distraction has been METS - the boat show in Amsterdam. It's the biggest boat show in the world and there's not a boat in sight! It's a trade show really with 1,700 exhibitors of boat equipment. To give that some perspective, the biggest actual boat show in the world, Fort Lauderdale, has just a few more than half that number . As a result it takes all three days to get around METS and I'm sure we missed some! We did find some really interesting things though. Great new products and we learned about some established ones as well, things that would be really good to have on the boat, so it was a very successful trip. It's not always possible to give the depth of information that people want so we've added links below to the products we looked at so you can find out more. Also do feel free to ask questions in the comments and remember we will be reviewing some of these products on board Fair Isle so keep watching the episodes to see how they do. ePropulsion Spirit 2: There has been talk of a more powerful version of the Spirit outboard for some time and we have been eagerly waiting for its arrival. So it was a pleasant surprise to see it launched at METS this year and it looks like they have done a great job with it. Boosting power and range but still keeping the ease of portability we love with the Spirit 1 and even improving some design features taking ideas from the eLite version. The Spirit 2 won't be available to the public until spring / summer 2026 unfortunately, but we do hope to get an advanced unit for testing early next year. https://www.epropulsion.com/products/electric-outboards/spirit-2 Comfort Seat: We get asked about the seats we have on board more than anything else. We actually bought our small ones off some friends in Cartagena 6 years ago who had purchased too many and we are very glad we did. These seats are amazing and the larger version with the leg and head support changed our lives on board as we use them while sailing as well as lazing around. It means we dont have to have a bunch of cockpit cushions that need to be stored somewhere when not in use and they are a whole lot more comfortable too. Comfort seat are a small family run Dutch company and we are glad that people are getting to know about their fabulous seats. https://comfortseat.nl/# Marco: We have had several domestic water pumps on Fair isle, all have been unreliable and very very noisy! We mentioned this in our last episode and several people said to go and look at Marco pumps which are made in Italy. Luckily they had a stand at the show and we were very impressed with what we saw. Look them up, you won't be dissapointed! https://items.marco.it/en/products/pumps/gear-pumps/marine/page/4.html Mantus: We have been very impressed with Mantus after swapping to their anchor and swivel. They are a great company to deal with, take pride in their products and listen to feedback and constantly strive to improve their gear to be the best available. So it was no surprise at METS that the M1 and M2 anchors have gone through a round of changes, little tweaks to improve them further based on feedback from users and in house testing. The M1 has some ribs on the shank to improve strength and the M2 has a twist on the little ears to help the fluke dig down in softer substrates and to help keep the anchor square on a reset. We will be testing the new design later this year. https://www.mantusmarine.com/new-m1-design/?srsltid=AfmBOor0sSv9g6o2Tm_NIHdInuq_761rHf7IJIOqIVZm7_mjwQi534dS&v=28886f13f578 Bruntons Props We were looking for a possible replacement for our MaxProp which is now on the limits of its wear. We need a feathering prop on Fair Isle that fully flips around to give proper grip in reverse as this is key to maneuverability in tight spaces with a long keeled sailboat. The MaxProp does well with this but the Bruntons prop does the same job in reverse and has some other key advantages with its ability to constantly vary its pitch. We are very much looking forward to testing a Bruntons Prop so do look out for the review video which will be coming next year. https://bruntonspropellers.com/ Henri Lloyd: We have been very disappointed with the quality of some of our sailing clothing over the years. This culminated in a very expensive sailing jacket I bought at the Annapolis boat show 2 years ago literally falling apart after being worn about a dozen times. Asking around, the company that people were rating for quality was Henri Lloyd and they have recently been focusing on their marine clothing over all their other lines. It was great to meet the guys that run the company who are all keen sailors and are passionate about what they do. https://www.henrilloyd.com/