MBM's new editor - what will you tell him...?

Hi all

With great pleasure I've taken the helm of Motor Boats Monthly after Kim Hollamby was snatched away to head up the ybw.com portfolio. I've been with the mag since it started, and am a lifelong boatowner, both power and sail. Although we have many new ideas for you, particularly in the practical areas, feedback is vital to us. What would YOU like to see changed, added or dropped? What makes you smile or cringe? Is there an area we are ignoring? ...or overcooking? This is your magazine, so any ideas or suggestions you have are more than welcome. Nows your chance. Tell it to me straight. I can take it, honest..... Looking forward to hearing from you!

Jake Kavanagh

Good luck Jake, I hope that you have a successful tenure as Editor.

It would be good to see the Hands On articles and features continue and expand. I am sure that most of your readers undertake at least some of their own maintenance and this advice is very helpful. Of course, there are obvious safety aspects of knowing how it all works on your own boat.

Having had some passages where I have moored up, then got off and kissed the ground, I would be keen to read other accounts from people where things have all gone pear shaped. Some lessons learned may save someone else.

I like to read real accounts from real people using their boats as God intended and not as some kind of caravan like willy extension.

Please don't be afraid to say if something is pants just because whoever is concerned is a major advertiser. Otherwise we will all find out the hard way and wonder why we were not warned earlier. It must be a difficult path to tread at times but I am sure that your honesty and integrity will win through! Tell me if I am brown nosing too much. ( I could do with a new MBM Baseball cap though! )

I think that MBM has got things about right at present. Unlike MBY which seems to be heading towards AB1 coffee tables and chartering to the Moon, only 2 million quid a go.

Lastly, do you have editorial control over your picture on the Editors View page? Or will we be seeing lots of dodgy photos of Jake not looking his best?

Hope to see you on the Channel Islands or Zeeland trips this year.

Good Luck

Dave Steward Odyssea

Firstly congratulations. Secondly,I take the magasine every month and feel it good value for money. Lastly, communication - I have e-mailed you twice on a subject but have not had any response. I am not concerned if my query was not felt to be of sufficiently wide interest for the magasine as you must get lots of enquiries and you can only use so many. What I was surprised and slightly annoyed about was to receive no response from your staff at all. A "no thanks" would have been be better than nothing. Errors occur and if it was nothing more than that please ignore this note. Having been critical, I repeat I enjoy the mag. and will continue to buy. May you go from strength to strength and continue to plug The Pathfinder Powerboat Club.

Yes, welcome to the hot seat.

What so many yotties do not realise is that most of the sailing yotties are also power-boaters for a good deal of the time. The coming of economic small diesels has turned almost every yacht into a motor sailer. If the law was being fully obeyed there would be a run on black cones for the rigging.

I notice among both 100% power and motor sailing yachties, a dearth of handling cpability when berthing. This seems to be the area where everybody wants to shine, but all too often makes cringe-worthy mistakes.

Just having twin engines doesn't solve all the problems.

Congratulations Jake, looking forward to seeing what changes Kim makes to YBW.com.

Yes, I would agree with just about everything Dave has to say. The articles I enjoy most are those about personal experiences both on passage and doing your own maintenance. What I am not interested in is lots of articles on very expensive new boats (leave them to MBY) and would like to see more of the style of PBO. For example Paul Berger seems to do an awful lot of boating but we rarely if ever hear from him personally about his experiences apart from one article I recall quite a few years ago on his then boat (a Fjord 32?). There must be a huge potential to use readers experiences, maybe invite (cajole) them to contribute.

Also a little more on the slower boats would be of interest, we don't all go careering around at 25 or 30 knots in our twin engined gas guzzlers. I tend to cruise at around 10 knots and seem to do a lot more boating than most others I know. This is a much more relaxed speed and does not hit the wallet so hard. As I tend to cruise without the company of other boats I think it makes you more safety concious and self reliant. There must be plenty of other people like me who want to read of similar experiences. Good luck Jake and please keep MBM downmarket in the nicest possible way.

It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

Good luck!

Congratulations Jake - well earned! Does that mean you won't be coming down to cover Solitaire's effeicent running on LPG now? I have some interesting observations but I'll not post them here. Any chance of having my negative back? Seriously Jake, well done and I look forward to seeing your stamp on the magazine.

Now that you are on a huge inflated fat salary I'm expecting you to pay for all the drinks when I next see you ;-)

Jake

All the best in the job. Here's what I would like:

Some decent competitions like you used to do - you know, with inflatables, engines, a decent bit of kit such as a plotter as prizes!

Some more testing boat reviews. I know this is a problem, but "unfortunately the sea was flat calm" just doesn't indicate true handling & performance. I hope you can change your tests so that you always manage some sea time in seas which are reasonably challenging for the type of boat. Even better, spend a night or two aboard! Yes I know - who is going to let you do that!

Some features on outstanding engines of the past & present. The best & worst would be great. I'm thinking of for example the Volvo/Mercruiser V8s, the Perkins 4107/8s, the big "Cats", the Volvo KADs, the Petter water-cooled twins & so on. You could show both the ways in which engines have developed and the specific features of famous engines.

I'd also like you to revisit some cruising guides. Boats have changed and in many cases our (the readers) average speeds have gone up. I'd like a new series of passage guides to ALL cross-channel destinations including the Channel Islands.

Having made these suggestions, I still think MBM is head & shoulders above the rest - not least in the way it's ready to listen.

Yours

Andy Barker

is there a chance you could return to covering affordable boating a bit more rather than just the latest/fastest - you already do some articles but in view of MBY targetting the nouveau riche/niche? surely there is a market for a magazine dealing with life for all those of us who cannot afford a new boat every 2/3 years.

I guess what I am really saying is more of the same please but don't make the mistake they have recently of ignoring the ordinary boat owner with a restricted budget.

Good luck with the new job and I hope to meet you on the C.I. trip in May.

Congratulations Jake, i guess this means pod will have to retire for a bit while you get to play on Calm Voyager.For ideas on things to print take a look at Sailing Todays Ports of call features they are great for harbours/marinas you have not used before.

I would be really keen to have a page of free reader classified ads [Loot for boaters?!] It could also be replicated on this web site.

Not only would this be a great resourse, but perhaps the age old argument of advertising on this forum would stop!

Thanks & good luck! Mark

Well done Jake. At least you won't have to worry about the editor dropping you in it at the calibration weekend dinner. Now you get to rehearse your speeches.

I love the pre-owned boat reports, especially having been in one of them! But how about doing the full boat review on some secondhand boats.

Try and persuade Princess to donate a boat as a prize again. Last time it was a 286 IIRC. Make it a Targa and you'll be like Who Wants to be a Millionaire!

Doug A

Hi Les

Thanks for your comments. I do apologise if we have ignored you - not intentionally, I promise, because all calls could result in a potential features or useful contacts for us. We have found, however, that the e mail system has a mind of its own sometimes. (I've done a search of all my files and archives and can't find your message anywhere.) I have sent many replies to people who have contacted us electronically, only to have them come winging back with 'unable to deliver - returned to mailer' on them. Frustrating, so we would ask all contributors to add a snail-mail address or home telephone number to their e-mail as a fail-safe. Please do try again! Glad you're with Pathfinders. Good bunch, that, and we're hoping to gate crash one of your events this year!(Call me direct on 020 7 261 7257) Here's hoping for a good season.

Jake, on behalf of the Pathfinder Power Club - the Chairman struggles with technology - congratulations from us all. You are always welcome, as you know, to join in on any of our events. What about our X Channel?

Best wishes

David Luetchford Treasurer - Pathfiner Power Boat Club

www.ppc.org.uk

Congratulations Now all your troubles start. Now that your in the driving seat if I start competing again will there be a chance of a picture as well as a mention in the mag? seriously though. Well done and hope to see you and Sarah soon.

!

Congratulations, Jake. I take it we wont be seeing you in that stick and raggie thing you sailed into St Peter Port a while ago and I trust it will be consigned to the garage with a tarpaulin over it to hide your blushes! What I want to see more of is

New boat tests, even short ones(warts 'n all, though) More 'test of time/popular cruiser' type reports on used boats Experiences, especially bad ones (a la PBO) Cruise reports Readers mailbag Hands on features Hull design (interview Bennett/Olesinski/Wolstenholme?)

I want to see less of Riverbank/Euroways (make them occasional) Convoluted equipment tests without a conclusion

But, overall, the mag is excellent already. I would like to see it adopt a more searching and critical tone towards problem issues such as new boat quality, brokers services, diesel prices, spares prices, marina fees etc but I dont want it to turn into a sort of motorboat PBO with articles on how some reader saved 33p making a marine toilet out of old fairy liquid bottles and a burst fender

Why do I get an overriding impression that those of us who potter around on a river are considered the lowest of the low?? You "seafaring" types (who consider that the Solent is proper sea....) seem to look upon riverboaters as the poor relations of the boating fraternity when we've just as much right to be represented in a mag like MBM as anyone else. It's only three measly pages in the mag anyway, with Euroways only one other page, and the main bias of the whole mag is on tidal sailing one way or another. So, rivers may not be your cup of tea Mike and that's fine, but for many folk they are and so ought to be represented in *each* edition.

My comments to Jake are to edit letters in Mailbag - cut out some of the pompous waffle and fit in more letters - and (echoing an earlier message) have more on used boats because that's got to be what the vast majority of boaters buy.

Congratulations Jake, a well deserved position for you. Might see you in April as i'm coming up and doing work experience with Kim for a week. If you ever have anything you think i would beable to handle do ever hesitate to ask. I'm so glad that someone with your experience and of course humour got the job. But i have to ask, when am i going to get a copy of your next book? Suzanne Perrott (Kwaver) PS Nice seeing you at the boat show! xxx

Could we please see more variety in the boats tested? MBM seems to test every single version and variation of Fairline, Princess, Sunseeker et al - but then don't test ANY of some makes of boat that may equally be of interest to its readers. I appreciate that Fairline, Sunseeker etc spend a fortune on adverts with you, but lets see things a bit more balanced??

I would suggest you look through this forum and you can clearly see the issues that are of most interest and even gauge the depth of interest by the number of replies Clearly fuel costs by location monthly table would be highly useful I would like to see improved boat reports with much much more in depth detail and careful comparisons feature by feature (safety, comfort, handling, ease of use etc) with all similar competitor boats

Touched a nerve there, I guess, but assuming this forum represents a cross section of readers, I dont see a huge amount of discussion on river issues and bugger-all on European waterways. Just to start the ball rolling, I've got a topic for discussion - Why are there so many 30knot flybridge cruisers parked on the Thames?

Tell ya why Mike mate, mooring fees are a lot less than on the coast, the social life is splendid and many of us (inc. yours truly) are fed up with the soul-less Solent Sewer. The only draw back is the stupid BSS. Access to the Continent is great and the East Coast is readily available too. I was moored at various spots on the Solent for twenty years+ and only came on the Thames when I bought a boat here, figgured I would finish that season here, ended up still here 14 years and a Thames-side house later. Never regretted it though I do spend most the summer salt side. But why a 30k boat? it doesn't restrict the re-sale market when its time to sell thats why. Incidentally I wonder how people that ordered single screw Broom 38s are going to get on when they come to sell, do you think they have restricted their re-sale market? As you, like I are in the throes of getting a new boat I wonder what your opinion is.

Just another vote for more river news and reviews of older cheaper boats, how about covering the opening of the relief channel on the great ouse this spring.

Byron, I spent my formative boating years pottering around on the Thames but I've gladly swapped waiting for an hour and a half to battle through Boulters Lock, being subjected to obscene bawling from rowers and finding locks shut half the year for the Solent scrum; I suppose you can always get away from the Solent by heading out into the blue yonder, something you cant do on the Thames. I take your point re resale and I cant imagine why anyone would buy a single screw Broom 38. I also take your point re accessibility of the E Coast/Continent but it's not something you can do for a weekend and I guess only a handful of Thames boats ever actually venture out into the briny. If you go to Holland, you see very few planing boats on their inland waterways but, here, boaters seem willing to pay for 2 huge turbo-charged engines in a planing hull to potter about at 4 mph. It's not a criticism, only an observation

I don't know when you were last on the Thames but movements are way way way down on even 5 years ago. If it was 10 years ago or more then you wouldn't believe how much movements are down. The BSS has sent people scuttling for non Environment Agency controlled waters, the cost of a licence has knocked something like 80% of hire boats off the river.(forgetting the nemesis of rowers) Locks are improved many are now on power to 9pm at night from 8am. It really is a changed river. Sure! you still get queues but only at certain times like Regattas or just before home time on a Sunday. Anyways... look at the mouth of the Hamble on a summer Sunday evening.

You're right, it was about 12 years ago since we last moored on the Thames and about 9 years ago that we last ventured up the non-tidal part. I seem to remember that we were treated like lepers on that occasion, having to pay a ludicrous fee (which I think I had to go to Reading to pay), tie some bits of wood to the side of the boat with the boats name on (and then the keeper at Teddington gave us a long lecture about the size of the lettering) and seal up the toilets. Then we were stopped at Molesey by a nice policeman in a panda car because a local resident had complained about our wash (I now know you all potter about on 1 engine). We have'nt been back! Pity since the Thames is very attractive, both thru' London and the upper part

Now they do a one month pass, still expect bogs to be sealed, and imposed a stupid speed limit of 8 kilometeres an hour (what boats work in Ks?) As far as the Copper is concerned - none of his business, they have no authority unless a crime is being committed.

Congrats etc.

"Straight" boat tests, rather than the waffly naratives of the day out and micro-detail pics. Other equipment/interest mags (eg hi-fi) go straight in at a price level and compare more.

I'd be interested to see more crossover from the forums to the magazines... such as umm, instead of just a review of xyz marina, have a poll on the website about it and invite ratings/rantings. Perhaps. Otherwise we only have a nice reviewer who won't/can't really slag it off the duff places. Also, there'd be more "insider" info with don't do /don't miss etc.

The bit about a (limited, cheap paper) Loot thing is interesting.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the trouble to reply. It's good to know that we're thinking along more or less the same lines. Some changes have already taken place, as you will see in the May issue, whilst others will take a little longer to filter through. What we are very keen to do here is keep the magazine content as broad as possible, with a much greater emphasis on practical ideas, and a closer look at affordable boating. No, we're not going to be another PBO, but we are going to be a 'hands on' title. Motorboats of all shapes and sizes, from humble home builds to the very latest from manufacturers far and wide, are going to receive equal exposure. To broaden our practical base, we have also started head-hunting for an experienced technical writer, who will assist our technical editor and have the onerous task of testing boats and gear to even more exacting standards than usual. Please remember, though, that if something interests you, more than likely it will interest us. 'True Story' accounts of a trip you have made, a good anchorage or haven you have found, an amusing anecdote you have heard, or news of a friend who has done a competent rebuild - we need to hear about it. Keep a camera handy! Funds are waiting for anything that gets into print. Thanks again for all your feedback. The team will be out and about as much as possible this year, and please feel free to bend my ear about anything! Good cruising.

Jake

Made a mess of that, DONT hesitate to contact me, in the building on work experience with Kim from 2nd until 6th April 2001. Anything you want, just ask. Suzanne xXx