RS aero Y&Y test

I like the idea of 3 boats, 3 testers, 3 venues, but it starts to sound pretty expensive, so who pays?

Did you sail any of them on the sea? I don't recall lambasting you then, but just query it now since the Halo hardly got a grip, was this Dinghy Magazine? I thought it had gone by the by before those boats came out.

In my experience of these things, relative tests, there are certain 'facts' that cannot be escaped. I've never sailed a Halo, but briefly owned the Blaze, if you are who I think you are, we met briefly up at that lake near Reading that caused all the Icon problems with its coastal handicap, I forget its name. Irrelevant to the discussion, my point, I do have one, to thoroughly tests boats they need to be sailed in at least three different venues, Inland puddle like that Reading one, a big open water like QM or coastal estuary like Minster and a South Coast club like Hastings, Bexhill, Us or Lancing for example, only then can you really get to grips with the pro's and cons of those things, they can be such different animals on different water and that's the problem you (and I jest)'lazy' journalists have.

You're also dealing with peoples passions, which in itself is a nightmare. So product testing, weigh them, measure them, sail them on three different waters, use a common tester but complemented by guest testers with independently written reviews (don't let them compare notes) then write it up.

That's how to test stuff properly for mags and protect your back.

Edited by iGRF - 08 Sep 14 at 2:46pm

Well in our game the going rate for full page A4 colour ROP (Run of Print, which means positioned at the mags discretion) was anything from £5-800 depending on your regularity and negotiating power, double spreads go for about 12-1500 and you pay more the further forward you position, Outside back used to be £800 to a Grand. Bike Mags before the recession used to charge a lot more, in the days before Future publication hit the wall.

The Online page turning plus videos, like iksurf or imbike he pretty much developed, so an ipsboat type thing would not be difficult to roll out using templates already fixed, the key is content, then I can promise instant exposure to that 150,000 click base, if it were me I'd not just line up the Aero & Zero, I'd chuck things like the new Supernova & that tasty looking Rooster Streaker and a modern Solo into the mix. Then I'd be all over that Aardvark rocket (not the slime green one) and some of those other tricked out boats you see at the dinghy show, I'd like a go in that Aura and have a bit of that exposed to a wider audience, that was a tragedy that a polished looking product like that evaporated into the ether.
Most of the rest of the world that carry out their action lifestyle lives have no idea these things even existed and if you want to market a sport, you need to market the sausage as well as the sizzle, and to do that you need a mag that sell both it and the sport it represents to a wider audience.
I have talked about it to Martin at RS and Rodney and a few others I run into now and again, but that's all it has been until now just talk, we've all had such a battering in this recession, calling us risk averse is a bit of an understatement.

Edited by iGRF - 07 Sep 14 at 11:41pm

Originally posted by iGRF Well, I've been trying to persuade a colleague to launch a more 'dinghy, racey, performance sailing magazine' focused more on kit, boat tests, trick bits when they come out, but he needs me to produce five grand advertising to break even and I'm not sure the companies that engage in this market are up for that level of ad spend even collectively. Which is a shame, because I'm sure a cross sold high image performance mag would be great to promote the sport to a younger market. This guy has seventy-five thousand apps downloaded across kite and bike sports types and his normal click rate is around twice that. We're still talking, but it's lots of work.

Can you still get Yachting and Boating Weekly?  Great mag.