This year’s Boatica Cape Town Boat Show is shaping up to be a bumper edition with news of a new offshore racing element.
The flagship Boatica event will now coincide with the conclusion of the inaugural Canyon Cup sailing race, a scheduling move designed to bolster the public profile of both events and breathe new life into the entire blue economy. Synergies between the two events are a further tonic for the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront’s vision of an expanded water footprint, particularly as international visitor numbers continue to increase.
The event was officially launched in early June at a V&AW event hosted by several stakeholders, among them Neil Piper from Messe Frankfurt.
“Boatica is excited to be a part of the Canyon Cup this year,” Piper said at the event. “We see it as a very important event in the calendar and are happy to be a partner.”
SABBEX chairperson Bruce Tedder said marrying the race to the boat show would help ‘connect the dots’ by linking more sailors to the industry event which already features the popular ‘Great Optimist Race’ hosted by Greg Bertish. “The idea is to let one event feed off the other, instead of having events in silos that don’t link together,” Tedder said.