More ideas for Hugo/ MBY

Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

Custom Boat? Fine idea. All it needs is a progressive, forward-thinking Publisher, probably someone who's got shed-loads of money and retired early, knows a bit about boats and is prepared to let the Editor go bonkers with hair-brained schemes. These days anyone with InDesign and a digital camera can produce a mag from their front room. Get in printed in Poland (uber cheap and top quality), bring in an ad manager with balls of steel, bung it out there for a fiver, and the jobs a good 'un.

Anyone?
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

A lot of good points have been made some constructive some not.
But I agree the test reports have become a bit sterile, and apart from the odd exception so have a lot of the boats with electronics taking a more dominant role in boat driving and navigation, don't get me wrong I'm not a Luddite as I am right at the sharp end delivering expensive complex boats to frighteningly ignorant owners.
But I digress, couldn't we have a kind a Michelins Guide to good boats with stars for various aspects of its design and functionality, and instead of letting a couple of guys do the test how about a real couple, so the lady can contribute regarding the boats useability, i.e. the bathrooms, showers, getting around the boat, and one or other of them describing the galley and its user friendliness.
As its not until after you have used the boat you find out you have close the fridge to open the drawers, or you have to undo all the press studs before you can open the awning to get aboard from the pontoon etc.
I recently tested a SAGA 315 and was very impressed by the triple wipers that actually cleared the screen and all 3 had variable intermittent wipe, something that has been on cheap family cars for over a decade.
And why can't the designers take a leaf from the car industries book, and design a helm around a human, instead of one size helm fits all, with haphazardly placed controls, I believe that the trim on drives for example should ALWAYS be placed derectly ahead of the throttles so they are to hand once up to speed for trimming, instead of needing to swap hands on the wheel to use them.
I often think a lot of helm designers have never actually been afloat!
And couldn't we inject a bit of Top Gear type reporting into the test reports, and to hell with being PC.
And have some fun along the way, timed slalom courses, manouvering contests, lets get away from the dry, bland reporting and make it more appealing to the average reader instead of only fascinating to someone who is contemplating buying that particular boat.
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

Hugo
I have become an expert on Traders and would very much like to test and write up the new models ... would not cost you a penny either! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
How about a boat "rating", provided by real world owners of the particular boat.

Ratings could include a star rating for accommodation, build quality, sea keeping, comfort, performance, and a overall "satisfaction with vessel" rating etc.

Popular makes could be listed and invitations for feedback issued to forumites and readers. This should be a really helpful guide to newcomers and people looking to change their boat!

Garry
 
I must say i agree with TCM. I ued to buy MBY and MBM every month but havn't for at least two years, yeah i've flicked though them both whilst waiting for a train or plane and wanted something for the long journey ahead but never bought either of them. That must say something for someone who has lived, ate and brethed motorboats for over 20 years. I do subscribe to PBO and put up with the daft articles because in between them is probably the only boat mag worth reading IMHO.
 
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How about a boat "rating", provided by real world owners of the particular boat.



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Have you ever met a boat owner who thinks his boat is anything less than absolutely fantastic..? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

hm nah. I grew up surrounded by ford cortinas, morris 1100's and some rich guy had a Van den Plas. I bet some Which? did a test on Ford cortinas, but it wd have been the 2000GXL Mk IV, not the 1600cc estate mk 3 deluxe (ie base) wot we had. My dad bought which and hence he disatrously (for me) bought a renault 12 instead of an old square-box Zodiac or a falky XJS even though i promised that three kids could sit in the back, or two of themstay behind, anything. LJK setright mused on the Citroen CX turbo as the ultimate car for a hooligan short of a a lotus, and some years later i bought one, took off over a humpback bridge undramatically and later sold it to some bloke at waterloo train station for a grand. It's this sort of smoky memory that should be cultivated, essentially buying half-working things that go down in value but backed up by solid memorable dreamy journalism about how it was somehow fab, rather than the fact that the as-tested new price did or did not include VAT which I can't remember LJK ever mentioning.
 
Gusta v Pred

That would inded be intresting. Casual glance whilst both ashore up on block is a bit grim for the sunseeker fanclub - it's all a bit bodged up with wires and suchlike all local-theatre-style hidden under the squeaker swim platform, whereas the mangusta is smooth underneath and looks as though they have made quite lot of these already, 107 before that, some 105's before that and so on all the way back. The lighter-built sqeaker might well be able to out-drag a mangusta with same motors of course. But it shows that they made a few 94' boats a couple of years back, a few 80's and even only 8/9 years ago their biggest buyable boat was a 63, one fifth of the volume and less than a twentieth of the price but pretty much the same only-quite-luxurious spec. Ok, i'll get off the fence: get on a sseeker 108 "yacht" and start walking forwards...and oops all of a sudden you'll find yourself in the owners suite! What clot designed it as such an easy walk thru? What exactly is the point of a private boat if it isn't ...very very private indeed? This sounds minor, but it isn't.
 
Re: Gusta v Pred

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get on a sseeker 108 "yacht" and start walking forwards...and oops all of a sudden you'll find yourself in the owners suite! What clot designed it as such an easy walk thru? What exactly is the point of a private boat if it isn't ...very very private indeed? This sounds minor, but it isn't.

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But sunseekers market is the Stringfellow type chap and as such this must be spot on. "Oh dear, you seem to have entered my private cabin while I'm massaging my niece with olive oil" Spot on design I'd say.
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

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and was very impressed by the triple wipers that actually cleared the screen

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I am slightly aroused and moist after reading that....or would be if it was being written after being engaged in some extreme boating pursuit.

To me MBM and MBY are fighting over the same ground year after year. I buy PBO every month and read the other two in the WH Smith lending library and only buy it if something takes my fancy.

Sooner or later, MBM and MBY will have to merge or one will have to close as the are just too similar.

masaccio says that boat builders are catholic and do not like a humorous tone to boat test articles and they will pull advertising if articles are critical. So, what is the point of a boat test then?

If one of the mags was made into a boaty lifestyle magazine, like TG mag, then it would still attract the lions share of the broker's adverts and you can replace the reactionary boat builders with lifestyle products advertising, until they eventually see the light themselves. I used to buy Custom Car Magazine when I was a kid. I couldn't drive and I couldn't even afford the expensive mods they featured, but I could read the wacky, informative and funny articles and daydream a bit. I don't daydream reading MBY as it is frankly too conservatively boring, I fall asleep instead.

As I said in the other thread, put some half scared journo on a Bladerun boat in July - Of course I will volunteer for this hazardous duty myself - which will not break the bank.
 
Teenagerish opinion

I agree that MBY is too dull to buy anymore. I haven't bought a copy (or actually read a copy, there was one lying around in an office tother day but I didn't bother picking it up) for er, about 4 or 5 months.
I do however buy Boat International every month because stories about big monster boats are inspiring to numptie teenagers like me. I enjoy reading things like "the owner insisted that the aft deck was strengthened to allow him to land his existing helicopter onboard". It also provokes a bit of detective work because the articles very rarely mention the owner of the boat by name but they drop clues like "the owner, a former rockstar who enjoys penguin watching at night while standing on his head wanted a boat that could do blah blah...."....so I go off and google away trying to find out who owns said boat.

I think what you want is a 'maddened down' version of Boat International as opposed to a 'maddened up' version of MBY.

I'd pay £10 for Boat International but I don't read MBY even if it's free..hmm
 
Re: To Hell With Soft Furnishings

ha.. yea you mean! Look, you still remember every school boy detail! Dont we all. Ch4 or 5 has the BMW adverts at the mom. One is 2002 I think it was called, I remember my dad being real chuffed when he bought one. Probably the build quality saved his life when he drove it into an oil tanker in france. Still say almost every boy grows up with some interest in cars,that continues into maybe some vague interest later in life. Just saying, for most, thats not the case with boats.
 
Re: Teenagerish opinion

I note that Hugo has gone very quiet now. I hope he is not despondant enough to be looking up job opportunities on McDonald's website, but closetted in his office - prolly a god awful open plan 'can't pick your nose' work station - busily constructing a mock up of a new extreme boating mag that will have the directors in IPC towers choking in their morning Kenyan roast. And yes Hugo, those Maui-Jim shades and Dege & Skinner shirt really will make the boat builders crap themselves when you turn up to trash their newest creation.
 
Re: Teenagerish opinion

Think you'll find they're quite busy (along with the other 90 mags in the building) packing the entire office into boxes before moving from IPC Towers to swanky new offices up the road. So be nice to Hugo...he's just lost one of the best views in London (a view from the 23rd floor over the river to St Pauls and the City), replaced by a view of the back of Tate Modern. But at least he won't have to wait 10 minutes for the lift and then be crammed in there with a dozen fit birds from Marie Claire. Oh...hold on... That's another perk lost.
 
Re: Teenagerish opinion

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But at least he won't have to wait 10 minutes for the lift and then be crammed in there with a dozen fit birds from Marie Claire.

[/ QUOTE ]

Alright then, mebbe he's applying to Marie Claire for a job. Would seem sensible to me, unless he's the male equivelent of Ugly Betty.

No, he can't be. That's me.
 
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