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yellowwelly View Drop Down
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    Posted: 07 Oct 13 at 12:31pm
Originally posted by Timmus

What I cant quite understand is how Jeremy Clarkson gets away with "trashing" products that cost "gazzillions" of pounds......surely there is a middle ground where real honest reporting on genuine products can happen???
Or is that impossible nowadays?

I think it's probably a lot harder than we think.  Dougaldog's got a very good post on the Hadron thread showing his experiences reviewing the RS100 against the Halo, in comparison to the D1 and Contender he'd been sailing at the same time.

It's always only ever an opinion piece and whilst we have such large parameters and criteria by which we could judge a boat, it's really impossible to get a gauge on what makes a good review.

Should a new boat be judged by initial price and/or the running costs to assess its real value- TCO to you IT bods?  Having bought a few new boats over the years, that's how I judge the 'value' side of it.  But how does a reviewer know what the depreciation is on a new boat if it's only just been launched?  Are there patterns or trends he or she could refer to build a prediction?

Should a boat be judged just on its technical specification and 'sailing feel' alone, or should we look at the backing behind it to see if it's got the legs and marketing capital to make it a real class to offer class racing?  Frankly the best boat in the world is pointless without someone  to race against.  Unless of course you plan to cruise it and you really, really do get off on handicap racing and the vagaries of it.

Should the editorial direction move the reviewer to put himself/herself in the shoes of the reader or the target market.  They can often be different groups entirely.  Or should we just get to know the reviewers own styles and preferences, so we can adapt what read to ourselves.  I could read an article written about a car by anyone of those wallies on Top Gear, I wouldn't trust a cent of it to actually help me make an informed decision on what to buy!

Take a hypothetical 'new launch'... an entry level Finn, let's say from someone like Boon Boats who make for open class one designs like GP14s, Solos and Phantoms.

If the product was aimed at the higher end club market, priced on par with the Phantom; well built with a good competitive lifespan.  Comes with a choice of skinny, standard or heavy matched off-the-shelf rigs from an OEM group (North/Southern).  It's designed to renew interest in the class at club and local amateur level, rather than specifically aiming to become the next Olympic chariot; would it matter that it wouldn't be as competitive as the top of the range Devoti from Rodney?  Well that question depends on the editorial direction given to the reviewer.  

Next question, if such a boat were around and there was a growing fleet nearby, would you be interested in buying one?      
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Joined: 11 Aug 04
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 8:44pm
I can see that - never had to do it myself, I'm glad to say.
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iGRF View Drop Down
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 7:07pm
Originally posted by Rupert

From my experience of trying to produce magazines of any sort, getting decent content over a long (years) period of time is hard, especially when you don't expect to be paying for it. Websites seem to have the same problem. People only stay keen for a little while unless there is a large pool of contributors.Y&Y, of course, should be paying top sailing journos for beautifully crafted articles, with not only facts, but opinions - and not just ones that agree with the status quo. Advertisers should realize that a magazine that is widely read and  commented on will get more viewings of their ads, even if the product they are selling is commented upon in less than glowing terms elsewhere in the mag. They should use any negatives to improve the offering.

It's easy if you're enthusiastic and want to know about stuff and get involved with others of like mind, so producing it is the easy bit, the difficult bit is persuading advertisers to take space, then even more difficult, getting them to actually pay their bills.
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 7:04pm
Originally posted by yellowwelly

you need to come up here... we've got a scotch egg at a local deli which has black pudding inclusions in it. 
nom nom


Gros

You Northerners need help.
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 6:02pm
Got home to find the Nov Y&Y on the doormat. Sure enough, far more about an expensive holiday than about a new boat.

Iain Percy article pretty good, though he wasn't really admitting to much. One of the new boats won't exist for some time yet, and looked somewhat derivitive of Sailrocket, with some wild claims, and another seemed to be renders of a new yacht looking just like all the others.

RS cat will certainly need a comparitive test against its beach holiday rivals, and the foiling kit deseves a proper test, but one which tells the truth - what does happen up wind, or when you gybe?
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yellowwelly View Drop Down
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Posts: 2003 		Post Options Post Options   Quote yellowwelly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 4:13pm
you need to come up here... we've got a scotch egg at a local deli which has black pudding inclusions in it. 

nom nom
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 4:04pm
Originally posted by yellowwelly




a good Black Pudding,



Oxymoron.

Have you been to the little room with the big white telephone in it yet?
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yellowwelly View Drop Down
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Posts: 2003 		Post Options Post Options   Quote yellowwelly Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 3:59pm
Originally posted by iGRF

One also might think chicken and egg, if the mag aint preaching the sizzle, how are they going to sell enough sausages to advertise that they are frying tonight?

what's the point...  you can go on about new sausages all you like.  You can tell us all about the new flavour combination sourced with provenance from Provence.  You can film it cooking on location in Lake Garda in blistering 'champagne sausage' conditions.  You can discuss the health merits of grilling over frying and how one is better for your back.  I am sure we could find people who could talk at length and in minute detail about the difference between a synthetic and an all natural casing to put said sausage in.  We may could even find a sausage mogul, some bloke who's really a vegetarian and certainly doesn't eat pork, syphoning off the profits of his sausage empire into poisonous baby foods and offshore hedge funds, offering nothing back to the sausage lovers club and is right royally f**king over the local butcher who started it- it'll make good reading and forum vitriol... 

But when joe public walks into Royston Vesey Pools SC, nearly everyone would recommend he just buys an old banger like the rest of us.  And then he can go class racing and f*ck his knees up too.  And they'd be right to do it... class racing tastes better, and like a good Black Pudding, needs a supply of fresh blood and meat to keep it alive.  It's authentic and there's nothing quite so quintessentially British as doing things the traditional way, the way Grandad used to when he were a lad. 


Edited by yellowwelly - 04 Oct 13 at 4:03pm
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 3:47pm
Well a cynical man might think they're chasing the Ad revenue which is of course always going to be greater in leadmineworld. Even Mr Hadron man bless him, but he can't exactly be rolling in marketing spend, so I guess we should be pleased with the editorial integrity they have shown us, but given they really are the only act left in town, they took over the Dinghy mag and do have dinghy readers so they should do some dinghy stuff.

One also might think chicken and egg, if the mag aint preaching the sizzle, how are they going to sell enough sausages to advertise that they are frying tonight?
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Joined: 11 Aug 04
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Oct 13 at 3:47pm
Originally posted by iGRF

Time to relaunch Dinghy & Boardsailing methinks, none of the windsurfing press cater for inland or racing windsurfing these days, they're pretty much all wannabe wave & feestyle only which of course such a huge sector of their population can practise - not.

No need for it to be print, hell it would be easy for a man who once not only wrote the mag by typing it into a 1st gen electronic typesetter, but then made the plates and printed it on a Rotaprint than folded and bound it himself, where he got the time I'll never know...


From my experience of trying to produce magazines of any sort, getting decent content over a long (years) period of time is hard, especially when you don't expect to be paying for it. Websites seem to have the same problem. People only stay keen for a little while unless there is a large pool of contributors.

Y&Y, of course, should be paying top sailing journos for beautifully crafted articles, with not only facts, but opinions - and not just ones that agree with the status quo. Advertisers should realize that a magazine that is widely read and  commented on will get more viewings of their ads, even if the product they are selling is commented upon in less than glowing terms elsewhere in the mag. They should use any negatives to improve the offering.
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