Scary monsters

[Guest]

Does anyone agree with me that YM and PBO are very good magazines BUT...

...every week they each seem to have an article that is totally and unnecessarily scary. These articles come under the guise of "these are the lessons we learnt" which is fine but what they actually turn out as is "look how bloody frightening this is and aren't we brave to actually put to sea and expect to survive" (Or more realistically sometimes "look how bloody stupid I was").

There was one recently in a mag under the aegis of "Our right to moor" - an important point. The (very large) picture that came with it was of a storm tossed sea with people clinging on to the vessels for dear life. It looked like Noah et al NOT surviving the flood. There have been other (many) similar examples with accompanying pictures of dark, lowering clouds - driving rain and God knows what else.

Anyway, SWMBO, who likes a good mag read, now will no longer read this mags as they scared the crap out of her and made the sailing experience one of fear rather than fun (nice aliteration Twister Ken please note).

I reckon that their readers would be more interested in positive experience stories and that they should change the emphasis of the "this is what we learned" articles.

What do you think?

Geoff W

 

[andy_wilson]

Positive experience stories

That would be all of the stories and articles except those about..

Learning from experience

Buying a boat

Finding a mooring / berth

How to .....

Choosing an outboard / bilge pump / oilskins / antifouling.

Fixing dodgy electrics.

Examining your Volvo gearbox drive.

etc. etc.

 

[Guest]

Re: Positive experience stories

No.

Er - none of those you mention (apart from the one I did) have anything to do with actually sailing. They are all peripheral (although important).

Oooh I sense bitterness.

Geoff W

 

[zefender]

Re: Positive experience stories

I know what you mean but I suppose a story about a really nice day out in Sanguine Bay where nothing untoward happended might not be the most riveting read either. Not scary or likely to put anyone off sailing admittedly. Maybe we need a sort of rating system - one anchor = OK for all to read, three anchors = only hard, salty types should read - and then eat before passing on to others.

Personally, I find the lessons learned stuff a bit cr*p. I can't help feeling that a lot of it is making excuses for screwing up in the first place. e.g. Lessons learned ..should have checked seacocks before departing, fuel in tank, weather forecast etc etc

 

[Celena]

I thought my little piece in November's ST was quite positive...

 

[billmacfarlane]

We all like a good drama but the magazines are full , of as you say , either scary learn-by-other-people's-cockups or full of articles telling us what we should be doing to our boats maintenance wise. I'm not sure that the learn-by-other-people's-cockups articles are published to teach us anything . I reckon it's more like schadenfreude. If you did all the maintenance and followed all the " lessons learnt " you'd never find the time to go sailing. YM did a series called "Going Home" where nothing happened except the people has a really good sail. Don't know why they didn't continue with them - maybe people found them boring.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Bl**dy celebrities!

 

[Ohdrat]

Awwww I enjoy reading those articles, they don't put me off..

 

[vyv_cox]

\"Cruising home\"..

was the series title. I had one published about 7 years ago and received a nice water-colour painting of the boat as a reward. Geoff Pack told me that they had great difficulty in getting people to write this type of article. Plenty of contributions about cruises in foreign parts, but nobody wrote about their local experiences. His policy was that he preferred the local articles but this may not be the current view.

 

[Dallas]

I think the articles are excellent. Remember the magazine is there to entertain as well as to enlighten and educate etc.

Dallas

 

[jamesjermain]

See Paul Gelder\'s editorial in the latest YM. nm

.

JJ

 

[jamesjermain]

Still is...

YM would love to publish more, good, home waters articles but, then as now, they are in very short supply.

Anyone with a heartwarming or instructive tale about cruising in British/Irish waters, please write in. Paul Gelder will be delighted to here from you. If you have good photos to go with the piece that is a huge help.


JJ

 

[Guest]

Re: See Paul Gelder\'s editorial in the latest YM. nm

Yes James - I read it last night.

It might interest you to know that I have been trying to get YM and PBO interested in this idea by speaking to their editorial staff directly - so maybe there's a link.

I got the impression he was saying thanks but no thanks and opting for the status quo - indeed there was scary monster story which I scanned but haven't read yet. Somebody has dealt with this on a posting elsewhere.

What I don't get is that I believe this type of story puts newcomers to boating right off AND therefore limits the circulation of the magazine (as surely the first thing newcomers want to do is read all about boats).

Geoff W