In comparison, this year's meeting with the new chairman - Tony Hales - in command was a pleasure to attend.

Hales insisted his chairmanship was a non-exec position. "The executives run BW, " he told the meeting.

Hales was well briefed and well versed in passing things smoothly to the right person; usually Evans. Evans himself is a different man, now he's out of Greener's reach. He exuded authority. He smiled (a major change from last year). He handled questions - especially those on the Bedford & Milton Keynes Waterway - deftly, with sympathy and understanding. He has assumed an authority that was not there - or not allowed to surface - last year.

Above all, it seems the bone of contention on fair trading is now almost ready to be buried.

I think we now have a BW that we can talk to and one that will talk back to us. My congratulations to Tony Hales and Robin Evans.

And so we came to the Southampton Boat Show , full of trepidation.

Will we end the season on a high? Or will we end the season with the industry firmly in the doldrums and struggling?

In the end, it was a good show: a sparkling success, as National Boat Shows put it. If all the press releases are to be believed, records were set all over the place and the builders should, indeed, be busy this winter.

There were, of course, some dissenters. Some didn't like the way moving the Sunseeker stand had changed the traffic flows. And some were still expressing their doubts as to whether exhibitors can afford two world-class boat shows in the UK.

The boat show ended with Pumpkin Marine going bust, which may hurt some? Then Paul Callus left Navimo and Patrik von Sydow left Sealine International.

Both at extremely short notice.

Regardless of the ins and outs of each situation, BB hopes both men get sorted out soon.