The British Motor Yacht Show runs at Swanwick Marina on the River Hamble from Thursday 20 to Sunday 23 May 2027. Free to attend, by registration.
The three founding partners of this show are the whole of British motor yacht building. Fairline was started at Oundle in Northamptonshire by Jack Newington in 1963; Princess was established in Plymouth in 1965, as Marine Projects; and the Braithwaite brothers founded Poole Power Boats in 1969, which became Sunseeker in 1985. Between them they turned a country with no volume boatbuilding industry into one of the two or three that matter.
Premier Marinas curates the show at Swanwick on the River Hamble, and the boats are in the water rather than up on stands. That is the whole difference from a conventional boat show: a buyer steps aboard from a pontoon, at the angle the hull actually sits at, and can be taken out on it. The organisers are explicit that it is built for serious buyers rather than for crowds.
The 2027 show runs from Thursday 20 to Sunday 23 May at Swanwick Marina, ten until five and until four on the Sunday. It is free to attend and taken by registration rather than by ticket. New vessels are regularly unveiled here. The Hamble has been a working boatbuilding river for centuries and remains one of the densest concentrations of yachting infrastructure in Britain, which is why the show is held there rather than at a London dock.