Are the Sailing Mags Dead?

[jamesjermain]

Re: A recognisable ambiance

Andrew,

I respect your opinion, of course, and understand what you are saying. However, I cannot entirely agree. I am sure many of today's readers of YM find all the escape and relief from the tedium of modern life that the followers of MG did in years gone by. However, yachting has changed enormously and so has YM. I, too, look back through old YMs and although there was never any doubt that MG was an East Coaster, I don't think the mud and backwaters comes through as strongly as you suggest. That is the atmosphere which pours out of his books, rather than his magazine writing/editing, which was much more varied.

In response to another comment here, I am surprised at the impression that the cruising stories are overwhelmingly UK based. We actually find it hard to get enough good British cruising yarns submitted and are more often critisised for having too much esoteric foreign stuff. We try to balanced the two.

Incidentally, I totally agree that we have not done enough about the Baltic. Trouble is not enough anglophones are cruising there so we get very little material. Maybe YM should send me up there for the summer on full pay, plus expenses, to redress the balance.

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ

 

[jamesjermain]

Re: International group tests

Thanks for the reminder and suggestion - one for the Christmas Editorial Planning Meeting.

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ

 

[Mirelle]

Ahem!

I said "I am NOT suggesting a return to the 1930's..."!!

What I AM suggesting, precisely on the grounds that people are "time-poor", is a modern day equivalent.

I do think that people buy the magazine because they want to be transported out of where they are. NOT into a 1930's backwater, but into somewhere where they do want to be. Dunno where that is, but the current YM is not getting us there. It may be that there is a lack of strong personality in the editorial department. It all seems a bit aimless. Are we meant to be buying waterside property, or booking a flotilla holiday, or planning a summer cruise to Devon, or what are we up to?

The present mag seems to be all over the place.

(By all means leave the 1930's backwaters for Adrian Morgan, Ian Wright and I - we don't WANT anyone else other than the grumpiest of like minded curmugeons coming along - we will be able to anchor out of sight of each other and row down to the pub to meet up for a pint of proper beer round an open fire...;-)

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[Peppermint]

Re:Mirelle

Is very near to the right answer but not for the right reasons.

It's clear that we live in a different world to the MG days but it's equally clear that, with very little effort, YM could add a vital spark for the 21st Century.

Can you see what it is yet???

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[Mirelle]

Re:Mirelle

As an old, therefore not at all bold, motorcyclist, I know what JJ means about the bike mags, assuming they have not changed much in the last quarter century!

I am currently in quest of a motor car to commute an absurd distance in, so may have to actually buy a car mag or two. But they are not quite the same. If you are on two wheels, and you see someone pushing a bike, tradition is still that you get off and see what you can do to help (I recognise that Honda-san, some of whose products I have owned, made this very much less common than it once was!) So a car mag is all about which one to buy / get your employers to buy for you but a bike mag is a bit more about imagination. I suppose that, for me, reading a road test on a Bristol is entirely about imagination and fantasy, but its not quite the same thing!

It's not safe for a yottimag, least of all YM itself, to become something that people pick up just to read boat and gear tests. They need to feel part of a group of people with something important in common, and that something has to be more than whingeing about marina fees.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[jamesjermain]

Re:Mirelle

Vital Spark - could that be a Clyde Puffer

<hr width=100% size=1>JJ

 

[Peppermint]

Re:Right

You've got in one.

Inclusivity. Might be a stupid way to run HMG but it's what yotting should be about.

The whole activity is full of interesting people doing interesting things. I'd don't just mean cruising stories or superstar triumphs either. We have a rich history, plenty of business activity and the world to play in. Less stuff and more people I say and not just what & where they're doing things but why, how.

Getting the right people to do the job might help. I'm sure the surveyor showing boats to couples is a great bloke but apart from a sidebar of likely faults what he's writing about isn't surveying it's broking.





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[Mirelle]

Look after the people...

...and the stuff will walk off the shelves!

Like you, I read the surveyor articles (well, I very soon stopped reading them) with a dismaying sense that I was being "broked to".

I happen to sail a wooden gaff cutter in East Anglia, but this does not mean that I am not interested in what racing people get up to in Ireland. For about thirty years, or so it seems, WM Nixon, writing in YM, made that very subject (racing in Ireland!) interesting to me, and made me want to go and visit Irish waters. Douglas Phillips-Birt, writing in YM, made me interested in yacht design, and in the early history of yachting. In fact his knowledge was simply astonishing, but delightful. The only tyhink I can compare his column in YM to is Alastair Cooke's "Letter from America" in its breadth, range and erudition.

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[Mirelle]

Look after the people...

...and the stuff will walk off the shelves!

Like you, I read the surveyor articles (well, I very soon stopped reading them) with a dismaying sense that I was being "broked to".

I happen to sail a wooden gaff cutter in East Anglia, but this does not mean that I am not interested in what racing people get up to in Ireland. For about thirty years, or so it seems, WM Nixon, writing in YM, made that very subject (racing in Ireland!) interesting to me, and made me want to go and visit Irish waters. Douglas Phillips-Birt, writing in YM, made me interested in yacht design, and in the early history of yachting. In fact his knowledge was simply astonishing, but delightful. The only thing I can compare his column in YM to is Alastair Cooke's "Letter from America" in its breadth, range and erudition.

More of that sort of thing, please!

And, going back to the YM of the 1930's (and I accept JJ's point that the MG-era YM was not all muddy creeks; it covered the America's Cup!) one thing the magzine did not do, then, was to talk down to its readers. It is far, far, better to assume that we, the readers have a little more knowledge than we actually posess; that way you flatter us, which we like! A good meaty technical article on hull design or steering or shroud loadings once a month will do no harm at all...even better if we get some lines plans with it...

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?

 

[Jacket]

Re: Look after the people...

Yes, whatever happened to lines plans?

Builders are starting to put them back into their brochures, so why aren't we being given them in the magazines? Much more informative than a few glossy photo's.

For that matter, given most builders provide accurate layout drawings, why do the magazines have to publish the simplistic, inaccurate drawings that they do? Most of them look like they're produced by an 8 year old playing on paintbrush.

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[Twister_Ken]

What\'s hiding underwater?

I second the call for lines plans, or if not at least a panel of out-of-water shots showing keel, prop and rudder configuration, depth of underwater sections, etc. Much more interesting than the taps in the heads.

<hr width=100% size=1><A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.writeforweb.com/twister1>Let's Twist Again</A>

 

[jonjo]

Re: Well said that man

I was going to backup your first post but work intervened.

I think the problem is that yachting journalists are now too professional and don't have time for ordinary sailing.

The sailing they do partake in is parcelled up as tightly scheduled events. You know the sort of thing, a 2 day flight to the Med to test drive a new sporty AWB or a complimentary invite to a race & rum party on a Caribbean Isle.

It seems the pro's have long forgotten that yachting represents a change in mode to a simpler way of living for most of us.

Here is a question for the editorial team. When you kill the engine and feel the boat heel, do you think:

a - Did I note boat speed at 2200 rpm?
b - Magic!

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[jonjo]

Even if I could find all information free on the internet I would still consider the cover price of YM as money well spent to gain access to a professional synopsis and distillation of what's up re. sailing matters this month.

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[peterb]

Chartering

It's an interesting point of view, isn't it. "I've got my own boat, so don't want to charter. Those people who don't have boats, so who do want to charter, can go hang. Pull up the ladder Jack!"

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[philmarks]

Yes but it appeals to a wider audience and its frequency multiplies the editorial. And, fewer new boat reviews (which don't interest me, but as a lad they did - I still remember drooling over the Barbican drawings in YW and various boat tests such as the Contest 29).

Phil

<hr width=100% size=1>Rgds
Phil

 

[philmarks]

James - until about a year ago, I used to think that way too, but I find my habits are changing. I suspect they will for other people too as web access becomes all-pervasive.

As sailors though, many of us try to get away from it all, so I don't necessarily welcome the change, but it is happening.

Phil

<hr width=100% size=1>Rgds
Phil

 

[philmarks]

Re: A recognisable ambiance

Don't agree about the Baltic, James (although I haven't sailed there, but worked there). The Cruising Association has a very active Baltic section, and several members cruise there every year.

Phil

<hr width=100% size=1>Rgds
Phil

 

[alec]

You are either with us or against us

<(By all means leave the 1930's backwaters for Adrian Morgan, Ian Wright and I - we don't WANT anyone else other than the grumpiest of like minded curmugeons coming along - we will be able to anchor out of sight of each other and row down to the pub to meet up for a pint of proper beer round an open fire...;-) >


Why do you hate the rest of us so much ?

All your posts seem to reflect a deep unhappiness.









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[jonjo]

Re: Chartering

What annoys me is a charter holiday report with a dull writing style by some minor celeb that ends with "so and so was a guest of Mega Flothols Ltd".

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[Mirelle]

;-)

The above symbol, which you will find at the end of the passage you quote, is a bit of Internet-ese which is meant to tell the reader that what he has just read was intended to be humorous.

Obviously that joke fell flat....

<hr width=100% size=1>Que scais-je?