Owners Associations

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BlueSkyNick

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In the Moody Owners Association we have an excellent website and forum, technical library, quarterly glossy magazine, regional and national events ranging from pub evenings to cross channel cruises.

All this for only £20pa which can easily be recovered through discounts with some suppliers - i got 10% off a sprayhood and cockpit tent.

Looking at one or two others, their websites have very little useful information, nothing about events and somewhat dormant forums.

What do forumites think of their Owners Associations ?
 
MoodyNick said:
In the Moody Owners Association we have an excellent website and forum, technical library, quarterly glossy magazine, regional and national events ranging from pub evenings to cross channel cruises.

All this for only £20pa which can easily be recovered through discounts with some suppliers - i got 10% off a sprayhood and cockpit tent.

Looking at one or two others, their websites have very little useful information, nothing about events and somewhat dormant forums.

What do forumites think of their Owners Associations ?
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I find the Hunter Association very helpful and informative & all for £10 pa.
 
LadyInBed said:
Recruit five new members and get next years membership at half price.
Let us know if you achieve your quota :D
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Not at all - in contemplating changing the boat for something else and finding very little useful information, I realised just how good the MOA is.

I guess you are the founder and sole member of the Colvic Countess Appreciation Society !
 
BOA isn't bad - quite active socials if you want them. We had a rigging session this season which was good to go to. Forum is very quiet compared to here - but I guess that is to be expected. Technical side - well it's Bavs!
Can't remember the yearly fee, but we did 2 years as it wasn't much more and IMO worth supporting the assoc.
 
MoodyNick said:
Not at all - in contemplating changing the boat for something else and finding very little useful information, I realised just how good the MOA is.
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Quite agree, MOA is excellent.

I guess you are the founder and sole member of the Colvic Countess Appreciation Society !
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Possibly, but visitors are soon won over ;)

I am sorry to say that the Countess owners association is not fantastic, but that might be the difference between production and home completed boats, no two home completed boat is the same so the depth of knowledge can't be great unlike production boats, though I must say that there are a couple of people in the COA that are very knowledgeable.

If you want to know anything about a home completed boat, you either have to work it out for yourself or go back to the person who put it together.
 
I've been in the Foxcub owners, the Seahawk owners and the Prelude owners.

Foxcub was so-so. I know it's an old boat, but the Seahawk site is better and the forum is quite active.
I joined the Prelude one to get the specs for the rudder as I was making a new one for the boat I look after. They came up trumps with a blueprint of the rudder blade.

What gets my goat is that they are mainly on Yahoo Groups and I find that an impenetrable mish-mash that never seems to deliver what it offers. Internal Server Error is the main issue I seem to get. Plus their own Yahoo e-mail system instead of just using your existing one.
 
Boat info vs Place info

How valuable owners assocaitions are depends two things as far as I can see. First, the number of boats out there. Second, whether the boats are sailed mainly by retired folk (ie, people who cruise for more than two weeks at a time.)

So boats built for longer distance cruising (Hallberg Rassy, Oyster, Moody etc) have very active associatons (after all, many of their owners are retired and have time . . .) while the volume ones (Bavaria, Jeanneau etc) have such big ownerships that there are enough inputters to make up for the fact that most people are still at work, using the vessels mainly at weekends.

The main value of all such associations is boat specific maintenance and user hints. Moody are unusual in having enough south coast owners to pay attention to the social side and help people develop their cruising experiences.

But the main organisation dedicated to the cruising experience (going places, you might say, as apart from boat specific stuff) is the Cruising Association (CA), . It's more expensive (£120 pa) but you can get a good idea of the sort if info available from the publicly available pages of their website, www.cruising.org.uk/ . The cruise info link at the top of the page links to pages which compare all major cruising regions of Europe, using info submitted by members. The bottom of the Greek page is quite fun . . . use link at bottom left of home page to get there . . .
 
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Left the MOA after a pompous prat on the committee rang me at home one evening and tried to give me a dressing down because I had registered on the forum using the sort of name you use on here.

There is a forum for Sadler and Starlight boats which can be useful and is free.
 
Lakesailor said:
I've been in the Foxcub owners, the Seahawk owners and the Prelude owners.
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To me a Seahawk is a 34' centre cockpit Westerly, so I was intrigued by your reference to an owners' asociation. Mr Google tells me that there are also the Seattle Seahawks (an American football team), the Hawker Sea Hawk (a 1950's plane) and the Shetland 2+2 Sea Hawk.

The Shetland Owners site looks rather good. There's obviously a lot of support and interest.

I find the Westerly Owners forum a bit disappointing. For such a popular marque the level of activity is low. Perhaps the people that might have been using it are posting on the YBW forums instead?
 
For older boats no longer in production, and a small membership our main problem in the EOA with events is getting sufficient together in one place to organise an event. 100 - odd boats spread over the UK is pretty thin. I think that the most useful function is to keep a body of knowledge about the boats and pass it on to new owners. IMHO technical forums are not really necessary, in the context of these fora.
 
I'm a member of 2 associations. Still a member of Hurley which is very good and informative although, like here, gets some crazy ideas put around sometimes. Reasonable and increasing amount of social activity.
For 1 week I've been a member of Moody and it appears highly structured and organised with very good information. Haven't tried any of the social stuff yet so can't comment on that side of things.
 
I set up the Swden Yachts association as a Facebook group - main problem is almost 90% of the owners are not in the UK and we were not able to get names and addresses from the SY liquidators - still managed to rustle up 8 boats for a couple of great races at Cowes each year but not much else. We probably have about 4 years worth of production as registered members but it's hard without a proper owner database..
 
To me a Seahawk is a 34' centre cockpit Westerly,
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Thats a Westerly Seahawk known only to a handful of Westerly fans and of which only 159 were built, i,cluding 34 35' versions

The widely known and highly popular 16' 9" Seahawk to which, I imagine, LS refers is to be found pictured amongst his forum pictures:

feckless2.jpg


feckless1.jpg
 
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I'm happy with the Catamaran Cruising Association which is mainly for the 500 or so Catalacs plus Bobcats. As a new owner I received a good deal of help with various problems. They also have numerous social activities of which I am unable to take advantage. I receive the monthly newsletter by email.
 
Coaster said:
I find the Westerly Owners forum a bit disappointing. For such a popular marque the level of activity is low. Perhaps the people that might have been using it are posting on the YBW forums instead?
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I think they are posting to the Yahoo group.

I find the WOA quite good even though I'm not able to get to any of the area group events being land locked on Windermere.

The organisation seems to be excellent. The yearbook and biannual magazine with a mix of cruise logs and technical articles are both good. There are a good number and range of companies giving members discounts so that's good too.

The WOA web site is a good source of info as a first port of call. If what I need to know isn't there I prefer the web forum to the Yahoo group as I can find my way round the forum and follow threads, Yahoo groups are disorganised pants, but I can't bring my self to unsubscribe, just incase I miss something.
 
As aquaplane says there are 2 main Westerly fora which splits the activity, AND there is also this one for the older Denys Rayner designed boats - so a total of three fora plus the actual Owners assoc site with loads of info on the marque that is mostly open to all.

Long been a user of all FOUR sites (3 fora plus WOA web pages) but only recently joined WOA to get a copy of the Westerly Story, an excellent history of the marque. Higly recommended source of info on Westerlies - it is good to ask if others have done a job you are planning to get the heads up on any potential problems.
 
Dehler Owners Associations

The UK Dehler Owners' site, www.dehlerowners.co.uk , does a reasonable job, given the comparatively small number of owners and the fact that it's free and run by one man. They have their own South Coast Regatta and are trying to organise an East Coast Rally.

The Dutch one, www.dehlerclub.nl is much more professional, reflecting the larger ownership in Holland and the greater resources available. Parts of the site are accessible only by members (€30 pa), but they have lots of organised events (cruises, races, rallies, technical days, factory visits etc).

In my experience, User/Owner Associations/Groups (not just boat owners) usually rely heavily on the efforts of a single person with the time and energy to maintain momentum.
 
The Rival Owners Association is a really useful source of knowledge re Rivals and long distance cruising and manages to organise a couple of events at each of several locations around the UK and Europe.

At £15/year it is good value and produces several publications "Rival Roundup"s each year. As others have said it relies heavily upon one or two people to keep the the show on the road and I, for one, vlaue their efforts.

Not bad for boats that stopped production about 15 years ago...
 
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