Upheaval in the French yachting magazines

snooks said:
As the author of the new boat tests for YM, I can assure you I can and do say what I mean. What I can't and won't do is be unfairly critical or positive and always try to give a balanced report. If I could afford, to I wouldn't buy every boat I test, but I'm not every reader and I try not to let my personal views about certain design aspects cloud my judgement. After all not everyone wants to sail off into the yonder.

If I feel I might be sticking the knife in too far then twisting it by being too critical I'll run it passed the editor, if he's happy he might run it passed the legal department, but when I've broken a boat I've said so, when I've found something dangerous or lacking in common sense I've said so.


If I find something and the manufacturer is in the process of changing it or will change it I might mention it but I won't labour the point.

There are very few bad boats out there and I only have around 2,000 words to include everything so at times when I'd like to go intodetail I simply don't have the space.

It's nice to know someone reads them though ;0)
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One traditional difference with French articles is that the latter make much more use of photographs to illustrate a boat review. I prefer to see things such as layout for myself rather than be told about a feature.

Otoh it is very useful to be told about the things you cannot see such as the feel of the helm or hidden construction details eg that the Joubert St Marthe uses 12 mm aluminium rather than the more normal 4mm which means you have an ice-category boat and that the hull doesn't need bulkheads for rigidity.

Incidentally the French reviews often take place in the context of a real trip where not only the boat is described but also the place that is visited.
 
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Sybarite said:
One traditional difference with French articles is that the latter make much more use of photographs to illustrate a boat review. I prefer to see things such as layout for myself rather than be told about a feature....

Incidentally the French reviews often take place in the context of a real trip where not only the boat is described but also the place that is visited.
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All fair points and since Snooks often travels to do his reviews, as well as being the resident photographer, some kind of expanded "boat test" could well provide a useful format refresher.
 
As you can imagine there are lots of stats about how many people speak each langauge but as far as I can work it out, 508 million people speak english against 128 million speaking french. The english speakers include countries like the UK, USA, Ox, canada, NZ whilst french speakers include belgium but also a lot of africa. So when it comes to boat buying there are way more buyers speaking english than french. Surely this has something to do with the collapse of the french magazines?
 
birdseye said:
So when it comes to boat buying there are way more buyers speaking english than french. Surely this has something to do with the collapse of the french magazines?
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That would only apply if magazines sold internationally. How well does "Good Old Boat" do in the UK?

I bought a copy of Voiles to read on a flight home from Mulhouse recently, and I was struck by how lively the French yachting scene seemed to be. A far cry from the UK scene's sad succession of dreary old men, fretting about ensigns and the state of their gelcoat as they cross to Lymington for the thirty seventh time.

Yachting in France: sailing. Yachting in the UK: caravanning in a Breton cap.
 
skipper_stu said:
And me! Thinking on about what they did, they aint posh students working at mags, they actually did the biz!
S
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"Voile" are also doing a detailed series of articles on the complete renovation of a First 210. They did the same some 10 - 15 years ago on a Sylphe which they subsequently sailed across the Atlantic and up the Amazon.

http://forumdusylphe.free.fr/punbb/viewtopic.php?id=35

It should be noted that they published the renovation in a special 191 page edition and it covers in great detail every possible task that you might have to accomplish. They do make the point however that the cost incurred would not be an economic proposition in itself.

Incidentally, the text and the photos are by the magazine's founder, William Borel, who was the one tonner world champion in Citroën. He was moored next to us in Bonifacio in 1989 and showed us around the boat. It was an absolutely bare black carbon fibre interior into which they had tossed a few mattresses.
 
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Joker said:
And I'll give full marks to PBO for the Hantu Biru restoration.
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At this point I have to report that this series came about after an exchange of ideas on this very forum in 2009.
It was first pitched at Snooks who suggested it was more a PBO sort of thing.
I outlined the idea to Sarah Norbury who struck a haughty pose:
" IPC has no budget for buying boats"
It was underway a couple of years later.

I think there have been a number of good suggestions over the years.
I am sure that Javelin's - What Lessons for This Week would make a great regular column.
 
A most entertaining thread .... I don't have enough days left to put the record straight ! Keep up the good work ....
 
JumbleDuck said:
That would only apply if magazines sold internationally. How well does "Good Old Boat" do in the UK?

I bought a copy of Voiles to read on a flight home from Mulhouse recently, and I was struck by how lively the French yachting scene seemed to be. A far cry from the UK scene's sad succession of dreary old men, fretting about ensigns and the state of their gelcoat as they cross to Lymington for the thirty seventh time.

Yachting in France: sailing. Yachting in the UK: caravanning in a Breton cap.
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Odd how some people just love to knock their home country.

Anyway, I have never heard of "Good Old Boat" and wouldnt buy it if I saw it since I dont like MABs. But thats not the point - others will buy it. Probably not a lot but just as you bought Voiles, visitors will buy YM and more of them because because more people can read English.

In any business its the last 10% of sales that make the money with the first 90 or whatever covering the costs.
 
birdseye said:
Odd how some people just love to knock their home country.
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Do they?

Anyway, I have never heard of "Good Old Boat" and wouldnt buy it if I saw it since I dont like MABs. But thats not the point - others will buy it. Probably not a lot but just as you bought Voiles, visitors will buy YM and more of them because because more people can read English.
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You've proved my point. Yachting magazines don't sell many copies internationally, so YM and PBO get no real benefit from Americans speaking English just as Good Old Boat gets no real benefit from Britons speaking English.
 
birdseye said:
Odd how some people just love to knock their home country.

Anyway, I have never heard of "Good Old Boat" and wouldnt buy it if I saw it since I dont like MABs. But thats not the point - others will buy it. Probably not a lot but just as you bought Voiles, visitors will buy YM and more of them because because more people can read English.
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Really? Why then is circulation 2 or 3 times that of the English mags?

To give a flavour:

http://www.voilemagazine.com/archives/
 
JumbleDuck said:
Incidentally, YM sold 26,158 in 2011 (down 6% on 2010) and 23,510 in 2014, while PBO sold 34,014 in 2011 (down 11% on 2010) and 26,768 in 2014. That puts the cumulative drops over the four years from 2010 to 2014 at 18% for YM and 41% for PBO. It will be interesting to see the 2015 figures when they come out.
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Define "free fall"?? :rolleyes:
 
JumbleDuck said:
10% year one year probably isn't quite free fall, but I doubt it has the Time Inc board shuddering with pleasure. The 2014 ABCs will be out in January, I think.
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They will be out on Feb 14th 2016, those that have an ABC which all of Time Incs portfolio do. Not sure about Sailing Today...
 
Took a quick flick through November Yachting Monthly: here's my take if it helps (doubt it mind!)

  1. Four distinct editorial type articles in the first few pages (Kieran Flatt, Libby Purves, Tom Cunliffe and Dick Durham): all are well written charming affairs, but just too much in close succession.
  2. Article on Sail Furling: clearly not written by someone who had a deep knowledge of either sails, or furling systems - also some glaring errors in there.
  3. The wobbly finger pontoon stuff in Cherbourg - sound and interesting ideas to cope with those dreadful French pontoons!
  4. Gas belongs in a Gas Locker: top class article
  5. Legend of Grace Darling: excellent and informative
  6. Anchoring around Britain: dull and either poorly written or rushed.
  7. Sailing in Antarctic: very interesting
  8. Cork Harbour Guide: informative and accurate (I know Cork well)
  9. New Boats: good summaries
  10. Vacuum Cleaners: zero interest, but this section is usually pretty good
  11. Cruisers Guide to sailcloth: added nothing and completely boilerplate
  12. Snooks RM890 Review: unlike some of the aforementioned articles which appear padded with pointless words to fill the space, this report is packed full of information to the point of ending up reading a bit like a technical manual. Snooks has clearly had a good thrash on the boat and clearly enjoyed himself, whilst being honest about some of the drawbacks. But I think his work needs space to breathe, room to actually talk about sailing and include more pics to illustrate how he got on. For example the boat had a pretty nifty rig/sales combination - it might have been interesting to hear how the boat was a pig on the wind with certain sail settings (it will have been!) but how with the necessary tweaks (illustrated by photos) it blasted up the beat like a scalded cat...
...on the plus side the quality of YM is actually better than I had recalled; perhaps a couple of tweaks and these mags will also fly off the shelves like the proverbial cat? :cool:
 
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Despite the dropping circulation reported in this thread, we have found that gear reviews in the UK yachting press, carried out by reputable and trusted reviewers, remain very influential with many sailors in the UK.

During 2015, Pontos 4-speed winches were reviewed by Toby Hodges in Yachting Monthly (January), by Graham Snook in Yachting Monthly (August) and by David Harding in Practical Boat Owner (September).

At the Southampton Boat Show, we asked the boat owners who came to the Pontos stand where they had heard about Pontos. A significant majority of them told us that they had sought us out because they had read the reviews in one or more of the magazine, and now wanted to try the winches for themselves. In retrospect we should have noted down the number of such visitors, and which magazine they had read, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and we were constantly busy!
 
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