Is YM for sale?

[rhinorhino]

I have noticed a recent trend for the boats featured in the second hand boat reviews to also appear in the ad pages. Do the brokers pay extra for this edvertising?
Again, this month I noticed a grossly over-priced 38' boat (well it cost more than my HR, so it must be over-priced ) with an AVS of 116degrees, escape with only a mild rebuke because it had some nice woodwork.
When will we get a review that actually says anything critical of a boat? Or would that hurt the advertising revenue too much?

 

[Strathglass]

I also notice that when a second hand boat is tested, then that issue of the magazine frequently carries an advert for the same boat. At just within the sugested price range for that yacht in the magazine article.

Perhaps this gives the owner some justification for letting the yachting press loose on his boat.

Just look at the article a few pages behind the 38ft yacht mentioned above, then find it's picture in the boats for sale.

I see nothing wrong with this type of article and subsequent advert as they seem to give a faitly realistic report on the characteristics of a boat. Especially when compared with the <font color=red>'rose tinted spectacles'</font color=red> approach which appears to be necessary when reporting on new craft

Iain

 

[aod]

I suspect that they caught a cold when they gave the Walker Wingsail the thumbs down and then he sued them for a bucket load of dosh. Wanna sell mags you have to do boat reviews, so the safest way is to say a lot without saying anything!

 

[kimhollamby]

Errr...no

I expect James will be along in a few hours or so to comment on your feelings about the tests but in the meantime am happy to report that YM is not for sale.

 

[rhinorhino]

Re: Errr...no

Look forward to Jame's reply.

 

[pandroid]

Actually, I was going to ask if James really didnt like the boat? We've all got used to his delphic descriptions of 'quirks' and I thought this review had more 'quirks' than usual. About the ONLY thing he thought good about it was the woodwork and the standard of finish. By James' standard, that makes it a stinker

 

[jhr]

My SWMBO started her career selling advertising space in consumer magazines.

When (but only when) a product review was scheduled for a particular issue, the first thing she did was to ring up the manufacturer, mention this (without letting on about the nature of the review, particularly if it was a bum one) and sell some space to them. So egg/chicken, rather than chicken/egg.

Sponsored supplements or ad. features are a different matter; paid for by the company concerned and clearly labelled as such. A fairly rare creature in yottie mags, however.

 

[rhinorhino]

Re: Errr...no

Still waiting for James' comments.

 

[jamesjermain]

Not for sale

I apologise to any of you who have been waiting for my reply to this post. I was out all yesterday boat testing! Snow, sub-zero temperatures, heavily overcast and no light for the photographer - its a great job! Ihave also taken some time, thiks morning to give a considered reply.

I get very hot under the collar about this sort of post, to which I have replied several times in the past.

There is no link between advertsing and the editorial content in YM either now, in the past or in any future with which I will be associated.

As far as Second-hand boat tests are concerned, we have no control over the intentions of the owner. As a rule we do not sail a boat we know to be for sale because, in this cynical age, if something can be misintepretted it will be. If the owner should subsequently change his mind there is little we can do about it.

Having said that, I cannot see any particular problem if the boat should be for saie. The review may or may not help the owner. There is no quarantee that the report will appear in the same issue as the ad, or even appear before the boat is sold. There is no benefit to us in skewing the report or massaging the prices. We always approach owners, never the other way round.

The idea that a YM reviewer would sell his integrity for the price of a five-line classified ad is deeply insulting.

As far as new boat testing is concerned, the advertising department does not, usually, know in advance which boats we are testing, except in general terms and by intelligent guesswork. It never gets to see the text before publication - nor do the builders.

We never test boats in return for advertising nor do we pull punches for anything other than legal reasons. As I have spelled out many times before, the nature of boat testing is very different from car testing because of the variables involved. It is not possible to give absolute comparative figures, nor is it possible to take boats off for extended tests of more than a couple of days. Most of the boats we sail these days belong to owners or are company demonstrators which have to be available for a full programme of customer demos as well as press trials. With unit costs in the £100,000s and production runs of as little as 12 and seldom more than 100 (compared to £10,000 to £30,000 and runs of hundreds of thousands), it is impossible for builders to have models flaoting round just for the use of the press.

On the occasions when this subject crops up I usually re-read my last couple of boat tests and list the critisisms against the praises and usually find there is a pretty even balance between the two. I don't think I have ever whitewashed a boat which I have known to have serious faults.

I think is is fair to point out, however, that modern production boatbuilders - and I include the short run builders like Najad in this - spend huge amounts of time and money on research in addition to the fact that most models are to a degree developments of earlier models. There is, therefore a far greater consistency of performance and build quality now than there was when I first started boat testing, nearly 30 years ago, when small builders occasionally came up with a boat which was simply bad. The same is true in the car industry and from my reading of car reports most can be summarised as 'generally good considering her price and class but with a few improvements needed here or there'.

The vast majority of boats in production today fulfil their design brief well and are successfully matched to the target customer. There are issues about over-enthusiastic cost-cutting and long term durability which we have addressed in the past and which readers have clearly picked up.

Turning to Rhinorhino's specific critisisms of the report on the Comet 38 I would make the following comments.

1) Tell me where you bought a new Hallberg Rassy for less than £110,000 'cos I'll be straight down there with a cheque book and get one myself. The current 40 costs well over £200,000 and the 36 over £140,000.

2) You may have noticed that I commented on the AVS of 116 - '...disappointing...' and '...only just into Category A for offshore cruising'.

3) Mild rebukes included, of the woodwork - ...'almost overpowering...relieving colour would have given the eye somewhere to rest...' Of layout - 'the saloon is cramped for a boat of this length...headroom is lower than we would expect...there is no reading light...the gallery looks strange to modern eyes...the heads intrudes a long way into the boat... it is not very spacious...the all-wood decor may not appeal to those on cleaning duty...the port aftercabin bunk is more like a large single...the interior feels a little dark. Under sail - needed early reefing...there was a fair amount of drag in the (steering) system...she was not happy heaving to...Her stix number is also on the low side... the inventory is...not over generous'

I don't know about ad revenue but I don't imagine the agent is queueing to book space on h strength of these remarks. There are, of course, a lot of positive comments as well because overall, like her rivals, she is basically a good boat and her owners will enjoy her in comfort and safety. So much of boat buying is subjective and, in the end, down to an owner's particular viewpoint, specific neads and aesthetic taste. I try very hard to give an objective, overview of a boat which is informative for the potential buyer, entertaining for the reader and fair to the boat and its builder.

Time to go and write another one.





JJ

 

[kimhollamby]

Re: Errr...no

It's there now, as you've seen. He answered as soon as was possible.

 

[Spacewaist]

Methinks he protesteth too much. NM

.

A pontification from the Panjandrum of orotund bloviation AD2002

 

[kimhollamby]

The lose lose post

'Protest too much'?

Well, that's a pretty unfair reward for making the effort to answer a question in detail.

I think what everyone forgets when the subject of supposed advertising corruption arises is that you are, by default, accusing the journalists concerned of being corrupt too, or even of being liars. If someone did the same to you would you manage to protest 'just about the right amount'?

 

[Mirelle]

Well, I don\'t

I'm grateful to James for taking the time.

I am a part time journalist, concerned with big ships not yachts. I get very irritated with the people who assume that either,

(a) I can be bought for the price of a good lunch, by them

or, when this proves not to be the case, assume that

(b) I have been bought, by someone else!

The same people assume that I can be patronised with impunity, that I am only interested in making up a good story or that I don't really understand what I am writing about.

I can certainly understand James's point of view.

The fact is that there are other things at work here.

One element is reader expectations. Twenty or thirty years ago the boats being produced for sale in volume were typically smaller and simpler and YM could assess them against simpler yardsticks. Remember much excitement about the use of two Jubilee clips on seacocks, and so on?

One might add that reviews are mainly read by people who have no intention of buying the boat! We all read the reviews when we started buying YM and have carried on reading them ever since; we love to read a review which really "carpets" a boat which we won't or can't buy, because it makes our boat and hence us look good by comparison!

Then there is the law of defamation. We all know that a sister publication went down for a lot of damages in a libel action; it is common sense to accept that this will colour the approach of anyone writing subsequently. The reader who knows this just has to look a little more carefully between the lines.

Then there is the bland sameness of average white boats today. Rather like modern cars, they all look about the same (7/8 sloop, roller headsail, fin keel, narrow bow with anchor locker, fat backside for stern cabin, wedge shaped coachroof, reliable lightweight diesel, gas cooker, lots of brown wood down below, etc). This must be because this is the shape the market wants, but it is awfully boring for the tester, when compared with the days when he or she might be aboard an IOR racer one day, a motor sailer the next and a Tradewind or Endurance type heavy cruiser after that. It is very difficult to say amything really new about yet another stern cabin, yet another wipe clean loo, etc.

Now, here is another thing. Suppose YM has campaigned for years to ensure that all production boats come with, say, leecloths. A boat being tested has leecloths, but they seem insubstantial - is the tester to test them to destruction, and, if not, is he justfied in saying that they look insubstantial?

Then there is the issue of price. A boat which costs twice or three times as much as another boat of roughly the same dimensions, is rather likely to be a better boat, and if she has defects they can be jumped on more robustly. The cheaper boat might have bits which are very cheap indeed but she might still be good value.

I wish James and Co had more interesting boats to test, because frankly I do find most boat tests bland, but that is because of the blancmange quality of the boats being tested than the fault of the testers.

Finally, I just glanced through the review of my own boat, as a new boat, by the great Maurice Griffiths himself, in 1938. It's pretty bland....!

 

[Jacket]

Re: Not for sale

Just a quick question about the presentation of test reports. Looking at older reports, from the '60's and before, the article was normally accompanied by hull line diagrams and accurately scaled, detailed drawings of the accomodation. Why is this no longer done?

While I imagine that some builders want to keep their hull lines under wraps, others seem happy to publish theirs- Hunter include the lines of the Hunter 31 in its brochure. So when the builders are happy to supply them, can't they be included in the report.

The accomodation diagrams used by all the magazines seem at best to be approxomations, not to scale and showing little detail. As most builders brochures have much better accomodation plans included, can't these be used instead? I'd imagine the builders would be happy for you to reproduce them.

It may seem a small thing, but the reason that I, and I imagine many other people, read these boat reports is not because we're considering buying the boat, but because we're interested in the design and development of yachts. For us, accurate drawings are as, if not more, important and interesting as descriptions of the boats build quality and appearance.

 

[rhinorhino]

Re: Not for sale

Thanks for your very full reply.
If you say that it is pure chance that owners of boats elect to put their vessels on the market just as you go to press with a review of that very boat I accept that.
As to your integrity, I rather thought it was you being used by the owners/brokers rather than the other way around. I would be interested to know how you select the second hand boats to be reviewed. Perhaps you should extract an undertaking from the owner not to place the vessel on the market for say six months after publication. If this would reduce the boats available for review, it would tend to prove my point.
As to the specific points in relation to the Comet 38.
She is closest to the HR36, which is, as you know not (for marketing reasons) 36' but over 37'. The Comet is in fact 900kgs lighter than the HR. The review does not say whether the price is ex vat or not, but in any event many of the extras listed are included or cheaper on the HR so it not really like for like. To take one point, if delivery in Italy is £5,500, what is the cost to put the boat in the water in the UK?
But in any case my point was that including extras and commissioning it was a pricey /very pricey boat, not that is was more than an HR in particular.

I would also take issue with the comment that an AVS of 116degrees was "disappointing", if the AVS is with the short battened main, no radar, no radar reflector, no life raft (as shown in the photos) was 116, what is her real world AVS with furling main, lazy bag etc, etc? "Disappointing" may be a lawyers word, but I can think of some more appropriate ones.
Can I also quote your sub-heading "This stylish Italian job oozes quality woodwork ... she is a sharp performer too" hardly harsh words.
I stand by my words that your review was a little too gentle on the boat.
However, a challenge, I'll come out on a test day with you, write a review and post it here, you write yours and publish it and let the forum vote on what they think of our efforts.

 

[bob_tyler]

Re: Not for sale

As the retired advertisement manager of PBO for its first 18 years, I would like to add to this correspondence.

If a boatbuilder asked me to book him space in an issue carrying a review of his boat, I did as much as possible to dissuade him. I felt that an ad. in the same issue would detract from the value of the review for the reasons that have been stated elsewhere. Fair enough to follow up in a subsequent issue if he so desired.

The fact that the boat was produced by an advertiser had no bearing favourably on its review. If anything, the opposite applied!

I know that this also applied on YM. Editorial independence is always fiercely defended.

Various yachting magazines launched in the late 60's to 90's failed very quickly when they allied advertising and editorial of this kind.

 

[rhinorhino]

Re: Not for sale

OK, so it not pressure from the ad dept. So why is it that reviews are so soft on the product?