Then the March issue of Yachting World hit my desk. As I flicked through the pages, one headline jumped out at me.

"Where's the buzz?" it said.

It was Matt Sheahan's column and he was reporting on the Schroders London Boat Show. And he - like many of the people in the industry - was not impressed by the second ExCeL offering.

Sheahan carried on to say that ExCeL is a superb facility, but "?as a boat show, it doesn't have soul."

He's right.

ExCeL was always going to be a long haul for us. But as my many (often angry) sources pointed out, the second show didn't do anything to lead us to think things are going in the right direction.

One of the repeated criticisms I heard - and one that Sheahan again makes in his column - is that apart from the solitary Sunseeker sitting forlornly outside, you have to walk a long way before you see a boat.

Walk into ExCeL and it's coffee bars and fast food outlets. No boats.

I made this point to Paul Streeter, managing director of National Boat Shows (NBS), during the first ExCeL show. He told me ExCeL wouldn't allow him to put boats in the boulevard.

But surely the London Boat Show is SO important to ExCeL that NBS ought to be able to demand some help in getting the show right?

Among the responses to my editorial was one from Egham. Messrs Peters, Clarke and Streeter would like to see me to talk through some of the points I raised in my comment.

So if you didn't send me a response already you still have time to have your say. As always, anything said to BB in confidence remains precisely that: confidential.

I will try to put everything into an article to be published in BB's April issue.

Is there something prescient about the date?