Hopeless journalism, or am I mistaken

[dragoon]

Just got this months MB&Y delivered to the door. I was reading the article on re-engining a Fairline 40, when it spoke of the following;

"The engineer....removed the HT leads from each of the plugs in turn..."

The engines in question were TAMD61A's. I presume these are diesels....would they have had HT leads or plugs? Or am I losing my marbles?

Cheers,
Paul

 

[lovezoo]

Unless it was being re-enginged from petrol to diesel?

 

[Questor]

Was just reading this article not half an hour ago and was thinking the same.

 

[mjf]

Reading Hugo's 'month' I felt truly sorry for the Journo's.


All that flying must have been exhausting.......

 

[masaccio]

Well, diesels have glow-plugs, and the glow-plugs are powered by an electrical lead. So they're sort of right...it has plugs, but not HT leads as such, just leads to carry voltage to the glow-plug.

 

[PCUK]

So they're wrong then?

 

[timbartlett]

It looks to me as though this was written by the owner of the boat, rather than by a journalist. So yes, it probably is "hopeless journalism". Isn't that what you expect when you get an amateur to do a professional's job?

 

[dragoon]

The article talks about removing the HT leads from the plugs in turn to identify a bad cylinder, so I guess it's not directly referring to the glow plugs.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[dragoon]

I hadn't noticed who wrote the article initially, but I would still expect such a magazine to proof read it for accuracy. My guess is the author didn't fully realize what the engineer was doing at the time, and consequently there's some "chinese whispers" in the details of the story (are you allowed to say that anymore?).

Sounds like it's not me going mad at least /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Cheers,
Paul

 

[PCUK]

More likely the journalist who isn't an engineer wrote it without asking the engineer what exactly he was doing.

 

[dragoon]

Some very casual reading over lunch (and I don't normally spot mistakes, ask my wife!) reveals some very strange oversight in proof reading in this edition;

- An enormous 1 page advert on page 43 for Linssen Yachts has the catchy headline of "Tradional Values" - a spell checker may have been useful! I suspect someone will be in trouble over that!

- A picture on page 71 from the Round Britain race has the interesting title of "Cum non henim zzrillaor sis niamet nostin utating er si". What on earth does that mean??? Is it Latin???

Cheers,
Paul

 

[volvopaul]

61 A does not have glow plugs so no HT leads.

 

[Lakesailor]

You are not wrong. Journalists pass from mag to mag within a group and were probably writing (incorrectly) about pruning roses 2 months ago.

Hopeless and journalism go together like bacon and egg.

 

[BrendanS]

Not entirely true.

There are many journalists on the staff such as Kim, Jake, James etc, who have huge boating experience.

 

[Loginname]

The advert won't have been produced by a journalist. Most likely it will have been produced either by the advertiser or an Ad Agency.

"Latin" gibberish is frequently used in publishing/advertising circles when something is mocked up. It helps to show the appearance of something before anybody spends time putting the words together. Presumably it was missed on this occasion.

 

[hlb]

Know for a fact, most of the MBY jurno's have never been on a boat, or so they told me.

 

[Lakesailor]

I was generalising about journalism in general. Now and then experts are journalists. Emrhys Barrell is a naval architect for instance.