Looking back at the Düsseldorf Boat Show, the world's biggest watersports exhibition, makes the ISTEC team very happy. For nine days in January (not forgetting the time setting-up and breaking down the stand!) Hall 11 at the Düsseldorf Messe was home – and everyone waswelcome.

Sales of Sails

"We love meeting Parasailor customers and hearing about their sailing exploits", says Thomas Wibberenz, ISTEC's Hamburg based dealer and bluewater sailing expert. Dagmar and Jens Hartung, for example, got serious about cruising on their Amel 54 three years ago. Theystarted off with the ARC in 2008, then cruised through the Caribbean and up the East Coast of the United States, participated in the Caribbean 1500 Rally, sailed on to Panama and are already back in Martinique now. Dagmar said "we were just happy with the Parasailor and used it whenever possible". The Hartungs were one of many existing Parasailor customers from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and the UK who came along to say "hello" during the show.

Exhibiting at a big show like Düsseldorf is all about introducing the Parasailor to a new audience too. The mood at the show was very positive, and we are happy to have received numerous new orders. By the way, all new customers receive a free kit bag – stylish and practical (like our sails!). The bags are great for storing and carrying all sorts ofyachting equipment, like sheets and blocks. You can also buy the bags – at just € 19.90 they’re great value too!

Introducing our friends

ISTEC isn't a hard-selling company; we like to get to know our customers, not just make the sale. At the show we introduced new and existing customers to some of our friends – cruising guru and author Jimmy Cornell visited the stand to answer questions about sailing and cruising worldwide, and even spoke to the audience in German, not even his secondlanguage!

Also entertaining was Segeln editor Hinnerk Weiler, who flew in from his current location in the Bahamas to give three talks on his ongoing 'around-half-the-world' adventure. You can follow Hinnerk's adventures on the pages of German Segeln magazine, and on his blog http://www.hinnerk-weiler.de/.

Also sharing our stand at Düsseldorf were Wilhelm and Astrid Greiff, World Cruising Club’s German representatives. We're always happy to host World Cruising Club in this way, because Parasailors are a popular choice for yachts undertaking long cruising passages. We also like the fact that Wilhelm and Astrid make some fine Rhine wine and very good salami!

During the show we reinforced our relationship with World Cruising Club by extending our partnership arrangement for another two years. We also used the show to catch-up with some of our distributors who flew in from the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, and Denmark.

We'd like to say thank you to everyone who came along to see us, for making this year's Düsseldorf boat show such an exciting event. We certainly hope to see you all again next year, for an even bigger and better event! The ISTEC team at the show were Thomas Wibberenz, Jan Tebbe-Simmendinger, Norbert Bergmann, Gerold Bergen, Bojan Michiels van Kessenich, Jan Liehmann, Alexander Knuth und Volker Lamp. If you couldn't make it to Düsseldorf, we exhibit at a number of shows worldwide, so why not come and see us there?