Marketing Superlatives ....

Originally posted by JimC Its obviously my day for getting everyone to hate me, but honestly, in the world I was educated in the word for a made up quote is a lie. Take the quote marks and the "Fred said" out, and you can have exactly the same text in the press release and it isn't dishonest. On one occasion when it happened to me I was livid. I wasn't asked for a quote or even consulted, and what was attributed to me was ungrammatical and not something I'd have said under any circumstances. Frankly I felt it was bordering on libellous. But you can't really sue your own organisation for libel can you? I'm sure the person who wrote it thought they were doing the right thing, but they'd been corrupted by what seems to be an accepted dishonesty in their profession.

Originally posted by winging it   Oh, and Chris 249, come and meet Nick Craig.

Edited by Chris 249 - 25 Feb 15 at 11:32pm

Whilst there are many varying disciplines in the world of sailing, in the world of dinghy racing - and in particular dinghy racing in the UK, Salcombe Week for the Merlin Rockets is widely held to be one of the great challenges. In recent years I've been running a programme of interviews with many of our top dinghy racers, their views are an important insight into how the UK dinghy scene has developed.

Now it just so happens that the Merlin fleet has never been light on Olympic representation and there are 5 ring medallists that have seen their reputation take a bit of a knock in trying to progress through that infamous stretch of water known as 'the bag'. All of those I've interviewed seem to be of the same opinion; that Salcombe is harder to win than a Championships! The more interviews I ran and the deeper I dug, the more I found this interesting! Helms who can do a brilliant start, then the classic 'triangle-sausage-triangle-beat to the finish' in their sleep have found their skills wanting when it came to being able to build a winning score at Salcombe.

The Silver Tiller series, sailed at a variety of locations, across a whole season, is already a demanding series that brings the very best of helms to the front, Salcombe is just all that and then more so. Even world class helms, multiple world championships winners in other classes that I've interviewed have been known to make reference to Salcombe as an event that they wished they had had a crack at - though they too comment on how tough a nut this would be to crack.

Of course it is easy with the anonymity of the keyboard to sneer away at those who have won Salcombe and any other top events. Some of these are known to have tried the Merlin Rocket but found the heat of competition too much and defaulted back to where there are easier pickings, or else are medal winners in the 'fame may be fleeting but obscurity is forever' stakes. Of course the Merlin Rocket, like so many of the traditional classes, can be akin to Marmite, but it would be a mistake to underestimate just how tough it is just to make the top ten, let alone the top spot.

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I'm coming to the conclusion that marketing causes more upset than the yardstick system. Or maybe I should sy that
Marketing Superlitives Cause The Biggest Upsets This Forum (And Maybe The Whole Internet) Have Ever Known!!!!!!!!!!!

As none of the "Salcombe week is tougher than an SAS training course" "No it isn't, the Outer Mogolian Oppie race week is far harder" can be proved in any way, shape or form, why are people getting wound up by it?

Salcombe week afaik is fairly easy to win if you're any good, you just stay sober, which is called cheating, the main aim of the week being to break last years bar record for one night which I believe stands at over eight grand.

Edited by Woodbotherer - 26 Feb 15 at 10:30am