YM - Worst ever?

The thing I hate most about the British mags is their habit of taking a good picture and spreading it over two pages, even when it could be placed on one.
The mags never open out flat so the picture is distorted and part of it lost down the crease!
It could be easily avoided in many instances with about 2 minutes thought and care.
 
[ QUOTE ]
May I (I hope in the spirit of constructive critism) make these suggestions;
Competitions that require real skill along the lines of the old pilotage quiz.
Critical long term equipment tests. For example take the twisle rig and do a trans-Atlantic.
Critical boat reviews / Long term boat tests. I.e. Buy and run a boat for a year or two not just a couple of hours.
Drop the "it all went wrong because I was poorly prepared tales.."

[/ QUOTE ]

May I also ask for a bit more funny writing, Twister Ken's recent offerings really did keep me amused and gave a very enjoyable read, not to everyones taste as the boards demonstrated.

We go sailing for fun, even quite serious articles could be laced with the odd bit of humour, JDS showed the way.

So please YM can we have some more fun, you know you want to!
 
We have to look to ourselves

Before criticising the yotting mags, perhpas we should first write a few articles ourselves, like young Ken Turkey-twizzler. A friend of mine in one of the mags tells me that they would love to publish the kind of articles referred to above but just don't get the material. Apparently the pool is fairly shallow and consists of articles such as 'How I constructed a dog-house from a wheelie bin and a tub of araldite".

I've had one article published in PBO a few years ago and judging by the standard of some of the prose on this board some others could do it too.
 
didnt have time to read the previous posts - what are you refering too ? letters ? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
I'm no professional photographer, but something looks wrong with the jumping couple and the bow of the boat - I think it's a 'cut and paint' job with Paintshop - cheaper than flying a couple of models to the Caribbean!!

PS Would also add my agreement to this months 'death toll' - doesn't help build my wife's confidence in a long trip in a 26 footer! One death a month please YBW!
 
I think that the boat, people and background are 3 different images - the shadows dont seem quite right to me. - Dont mind though -

As to best or worst ever - I find my interest in them all is inversly proportional to the amount of time I can get out sailing - If I can do it I dont need to read about it.
 
Good morning scuttlebutters. As YM's Art Editor I'd like to clear up a few things for all you photographical experts out there. The cover image is one image, bought from Getty and completely untampered with except for colour correction. The couple may appear to be super-imposed because I have cut out the chap's leg to slightly overlay the text, purely to visually 'punch' them out of the picture a little more. I'm not quite sure what is meant about the shadows, I can't see any! It is the same boat, and same photographer as last month, yes. Why this should be a problem though is a mystery to me! It's summer, people are supposed to be enjoying themselves onboard, which is exactly what they're doing. Only last week I was swimming around the boat up the creek with flippers and snorkle, scrubbing the prop for my dad – isn't this what summer cruising is all about? Ok, the water wasn't blue, there was mud instead of sand, and not a palm tree in sight, but for cover images, a caribbean location that sets you off dreaming of long afternoons swinging off the anchor chain in your flippers is something people are more likely to want to see, surely. If I chose cover pics of everybody in their oilies in the pouring rain with screwed up faces and gritted teeth I think we'd see a dramatic drop in sales! That's not most people's idea of fun! So in the summer months, I will continue to look for appealing summer covers to keep you all gossiping! Many thanks for your comments though, it's always interesting. PS. 'Paintshop' is not software used by professionals!
 
[ QUOTE ]
If I chose cover pics of everybody in their oilies in the pouring rain with screwed up faces and gritted teeth I think we'd see a dramatic drop in sales!

[/ QUOTE ]

Oi, speak for yerself yer Southern Nancy /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

You have just described northern bliss, I don't think it ever gets as warm and lazy as the picture you paint above. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

As art director you must have loads of lazy Sunday shots that will never be used again etc. How's about offering them on the site as wallpapers, you could add some discrete YBW advertising in the corner etc. What dya think?
 
I do gripe on, but also generally enjoy it, my gripes are generally based around locations. I want to see more of Scotland and Ireland and the West coast too.

I am particularly enjoying the spinnaker tutorials currently, but would really appreciate something written with multihulls in mind. And, for me, with a boat with nothing more than a spinny halyard, how to rig the boat, with options and maybe delving toward PBO how to attach equipment to the decks. I do not have a swanky toe rail with lots of handy pre-made attachment rings....

I would like to know what sort of stresses will be involved, such as, how much up-haul will be put onto the barba <sic> hauler.

Anything I have written about YM has generally been requests rather than outright winges, though it prolly comes across as the latter /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif
 
James

I sympathise with your position and understand your instinct to defend/justify/protect YM.

But surely the bottom line is that perception is reality in this case. And if all the points you make were true regarding quality of journalism and relevance to today's readership etc etc, then you wouldn't even need to be making your post! Because the evidence would stand up for itself and people would not be complaining in such droves. But they are and the more rigorously something needs defending the more you have to question it's quality!

Or maybe it's just the complainers that are more vocal. I suppose the acid test is whether your readership has fallen or risen - not in absolute terms but maybe as a % of the active boating population?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top