Sanctuary Cove boat show draws 50,000, spotlights catamaran market

At Sanctuary Cove, the real story was the market read, not the brochure pile. The 37th Sanctuary Cove International Boat Show packed in about 50,000 visitors, 300-plus exhibitors, 740 to 800-plus boats and more than 2,500 marine products, and the catamaran stands did the kind of business that tells you where 2026 demand is leaning.

Held from May 21 to May 24 on Australia’s Gold Coast, the show has long been more than a lifestyle parade. Mulpha Events bills SCIBS as the Southern Hemisphere’s largest marine event and Australia’s boating blockbuster, and the history backs up the scale: Sanctuary Cove was developed in 1985, the first boat show was conceived in 1989, and the event’s 2008 record still looms large at 453 exhibitors, 53,700 visitors, 450 boats on water and 600 on land over four days. The 2026 marina precinct, expanded to 346 berths at Sanctuary Cove Marina in Hope Island, gave buyers and brokers the room to move.

The dockside conversation leaned hard toward multihulls with a clear job to do. Multihull Central used the show for the Australian boat-show debut of the Seawind 1370 and the new Seawind 1160XL, both aimed at performance cruising buyers who want real passagemaking space without giving up sailing manners. On the power side, Oceánico Powerboats put its XPLORER 4.0 Catamaran in front of the crowd, a premium fibreglass catamaran built around stability, comfort and easy handling. That split says plenty about what is selling: practical cruising layouts on one side, power-cat comfort on the other, with buyers also watching the marine tech around them for efficiency and smarter systems.

The bigger floor reinforced the point. Horizon Yachts, Maritimo, Riviera, DCH Marine, E-Yachts, Whitehaven, BENETEAU and De Antonio all fed the same buying-week atmosphere, where appointments, walk-throughs and dealer conversations matter more than the gloss on the stand. For multihull brands, Sanctuary Cove remains one of the region’s sharpest tests of demand because it compresses the whole decision process into four days: compare the sailing cats, step aboard the powercats, and see which layouts, volumes and handling features get repeated questions.

At the end of the show, the crowd count mattered less than the pattern it revealed. Sanctuary Cove remains the place where builders find out whether buyers are chasing cruising practicality, power-cat comfort or the next layer of efficiency, and the 2026 docks made that answer look clear.