Passage Maker?

Well, PMM is going through another improved up grade so the site is a mess again.* Looks like we will having to set you our profiles again.* At least this time they did not loose the past posts, so we do not have to build back again.* PMM will probable loose few of its members again.

*
Te only improvement I can see is the site is prettier, red and pink but the best is our posting count is set back to 0.* *******

The sole purpose of Passagemaker is to sell Nordhaven boats.

Hiya,
** Well, Willy, you've hit the nail on the head as usual.* When I first started reading PMM, the magazine had interesting articles about real world boats and boating.* Then I noticed the "content" sliding to, as you accuratly put it, to more and more fluff.*
** *I recently read (on the PMM website before it became unreadable) that someone asked Bill Pantaloon (sp?) why the shift in the magazine content and his reply was "That's what the readers wanted".** Well, I tell ya Willy, I don't think that's what the boaters wanted and they were readers too.* I really think the vast majority of the PMM readership (and boaters in general) are "ordinary Joe" boaters who just want to read about ordinary boats (for the most part) and their fellow boater's*adventures/trials/tribulations.***The rich folk*have publications such as Yachting, Elite Fleet etc.
** I remember an early article about a couple who had been travelling all over North America on their 1968 36' Grand Banks.* Howard and Jane Brubaker on Stormy Petril-A facinating read.* What about that article on Mi-T-Mo, the ex US Army T-boat.
* Now, the last issue I read was like the website, unreadable.* Who the hell can afford the latest "gadget" as reported in the latest issues-It only costs $55K.* PMM could mention this admirable "gadget" but pu-lease not a 4 page article.
** That's where this site comes in.* Keep it up Trawler Forum guys!

The head guy at the shipyard where I have my boat gave me some mags the other day, says he gets these all the time and doesn't have time to read them. The one I liked was Soundings, http://www.soundingspub.com/ME2/Default.asp
regular guys, regular boats of all kinds, including trawlers, good stories. Check it out.
Mike

First off, I will have to say that if you are unhappy with PMM website, then by happy here. I honestly don't think we have had much trouble as far as operational performance goes....knock on wood.

Now, in defense of their magazine....I know of no girlie magazines that sell really well where the girls are just average and have a little flab here and there and maybe a chipped tooth and their hair really doesn't look all that great.....ya following me here. People really do want to see the fluff and the pretty boats(girls) and the advertisers know this.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

PM's problem is GREED , they have no desires beyond selling advertising.

The mag could use some accurate tech info

and the website a DIAL up friendly selection , without Addserver and google video waisting 10 min a page change.

I do the dishes just waiting to perhaps get on.

FF

This PMM site must be a great place for y'all to endure such pain???

Well I'm not lost in Lima this week, I'm lost in Beijing. Jet lag wore me down so I decided to surf. For the first time in weeks I tried to pull up PMM. Dud big time. For a fun read pull up Setsail and follow Dashew across Atlantic.

I pulled into Nanaimo harbor last week. A real neat clean spot and lots to see if you don't mind walking. I plan on Desolation Sound trip in July with many stops along the way. When boating I forget about surfing PMM - wise choice it seems.

"This PMM site must be a great place for y'all to endure such pain???"

No it googles up fast so its the place the wannabees , hope to bees and novices collect.

They need the most help , esp since most are not the PM targets either in articles or adverts.

Most wannabees seem to be looking at old/used 35 to 45 ft boats for inshore put puting , or cruising the marinas.

These folks have a desperate need for realistic hands on info.

FF


-- Edited by FF at 10:47, 2008-06-04

If ya want a good snicker, take a look at their original "philosophy of PMM' from 12 years ago:

http://www.passagemaker.com/MagazineandEvents/TheMagazine/PhilosophyofPMM/tabid/306/Default.aspx

It closes with:

"We want to assist you in making your cruising plans attainable, affordable, and enjoyable."

The last issue that I saw had an article about getting and fixing up an older trawler - and three quarters of the items they disucssed doing were "best left to professionals."

I do not subscribe to PMM and I've only seen a few copies that a friend gave me, so I haven't observed their "evolution" over the years. But magazines only survive if they have advertisers, and advertisers only advertise in magazines they believe will deliver customers for their products. From what I have observed in our 2000+ boat marina, there are three basic categories of boaters.

Group 1 are the people with little money but a huge desire so they get whatever they can afford that floats and use it. Whatever resources they have to support their boating habit are tied up simply keeping their boat afloat and operating.

Group 2 is probably the largest. These are folks that have sufficent income to afford a decent boat in the 30-50 foot range, operate and maintain it, and upgrade it where it makes sense. But their primary focus is on keeping their boat in good shape, buying fuel, and so on.

Group 3 is the folks that have a lot of money to spend on boating. They can buy new boats or almost-new boats, and they can afford to outfit them with stabilizers, TracPhone and TracVision, $5,000 flat screen nav displays, $35,000 dinghies, and so on. Many of them have the time to take their boats on longer cruises where lots of boat toys can come in handy.

So if you are in the business of making marine "stuff," who do you think is your best market? Not Group 1. Maybe some people in Group 2. But everyone in Group 3 is a potential customer for your new nav system, new high-tech diesel engine, fancy dinghy lift, satelite phone system, newfangled stabilizers, expensive new miracle paint, etc.

So Group 3 is PMM's market today because Group 3 is the main market for the marine advertisers.

Those of us interested in reading about places we can afford to go, how to get practical use out of our boat, do-it-ourself projects to fix or fix up some aspect of our boats aren't going to find much of it in PMM magazine. In the PNW we have several inexpensive or free local publications that fill this need to some extent. I imagine the same sort of publications exist in other popular boatings regions.

PMM will still appeal to those people who can't afford to buy what's written about and advertised but are still intersted in all aspects of the boating scene. But to wish it will return to being a "relevant" publication for the average-Joe boater is fantasy I think. PMM has evolved right along with its market.

So It looks like its time for ANOTHER mag to come out and service the firtst two markets.

Good old Boat is this for sail boats , but has sunk to snobbisg worship of old boats , even the garbage builds.

Similar to Wooden Boat , where if it ain't wood its not a boat.

For me Pro Boat Builder is still the best mag , of ALL!

FF

I'm one of those that fit in between Group 1 and 2. I've been getting PMM since the 3rd edition and for the last 2 years I've told myself I don't think I'll renew it. But then it will have a good article and I'll send in my money. I use to sit and read it from cover to cover as soon as it comes in but I find it only takes a short time now to read what little is in there to interest me. I think I'll make the decision next time to put an extra gallon of fuel in my tank so I can cruise the river and dream of far places. I rarely go to the PMM website because in my hyperactive time frame I get tired of waiting.
Bill. I think the PO ripped you off because my last issue had the plastic wrapper on it. What do you expect from the knot heads that work for the PO.

I was an early subscriber too. Gave me some of the motivation to purchase my Krogen 42. However, when they started on that "growler" picnic project boat, I dropped the subscription. It was obvious they had lost either their mind or their focus.

I just recieved the latest PMM- and no wrapper. I would like to say that they have lost me as a paid subscriber. Truth is I did not get the last two copies after I let my 'scription lapse. Not sure why I recieved this copy
Steve

Just received the July/August PM magazine which I have read almost from cover to cover as it included many of the discussion we have touched on, its mainly about long range cruising/passagemaking and featured article on the several of the boat at Trawler Fest, QueenShip, Egret 46 Nordhavn, 55 Nordhavn with advertising on several of the others like the Florida Costal Cruiser., and an article on the Fest.* *

*
In reading the article the Eagle is by no mean ready to head north as we do not have the necessary safety items, spare parts, maybe a water maker for an estimated cost of 20 grand.** I still plan on adding bilge keel so the Eagle, looks like the stabilizers on the Nordhavn on the last page, to stay up right. I mean all it takes is money. Right!

*
I like the article about remodeling/refurbishing old boats.* However, most of them are not done by the owner, but hired out to others for boo co bucks.* Like the Defever last issue and the steel Romsdal in this issue.* Beautiful old boats.* Debe and I did 99% of the work from the pointy end to the blunt end. May not look as professional but at least we can say, We did that! and appreciated the time and money it took.*

*
A lot of the newer/remolded boats are wide body or with a walk way on one side to increase the living space., especially the narrower beams.* The thing I do not understand is the walk way is on the starboard side instead of the port side.* I would assume on a single the boats would prop walk to starboard.* The Eagle prop walks to port, so way to go, keep building them with starboard walk ways.* **

*
I see Bill Parlatore is stepping down, so we might see a change in the magazine.* Anyway the August issue is one the best, if you are interested in long rang blue water cruising.

*

Yeah,
The PMM page gets worse and worse.
I had not visite for a while and now it has changed and not for the better from what I found.
A lot of the pages in the forum will not even come up due to some error.
I still get my subscription to the Mag even though they seem to have lost the plot.
Some articles are great and it is still a pretty good read but basically appeals to a different demographic than mine. I'm probably a #2
We do not have any power boat cruising mags in Australia so this partly fills the void.

Benn

Yup the PMM website has problems as I try to access it from Beijing. So do many sites as I try to access them.

I'll assess the new site when back in the States and not government hacked. I do find the PMM rants off base after a bit of time in China. The magazine remains the best of a mediocre lot. No other rag comes close to my PNW interests, boating and cruising style.

Unfortunately this site has no attendance and most recent stuff is a lament on PMM. Go figure

True story, yesterday evening on a flight from Nanning to Beijing the gentlemen across from me was reading PMM, cover to cover. Quit your crying guys and go do some real work

tgwhite--

There are two magazines that if you are not already aware of them may be of some interest to you. One is Pacific Yachting *http://www.pacificyachting.com/* *which is published in British Columbia and focuses on boating those waters. It is a monthly magazine.

The other is Pacific Yachting PNW http://www.pacificyachtingpnw.com/ *which is published by (I think) the same folks but has a staff based in Washington. Pacific Yachting PNW comes out about eight or ten times a year. So it seems to be bi-monthly in the off season and monthly the rest of the time.

I subscribe to PY PNW and it's not bad. Has destination articles and other subjects in addition to boat reviews and whatnot.

-- Edited by Marin at 18:45, 2008-06-09

Marin
I certainly agree. Lots of good stuff in both. I find the destination articles worth reading but a bit*different view than I have *at times if I go the same place before or after. I have noticed over the years the Admiral grabs PMM before I do. Always a good sign. She will not do that with the other 6 boating mags we get and it is not the bikinis. This is the same woman who buys my subscriptions for Playboy. She's a keeper.

Maybe with Parletore gone, the magazine will become more relevent to the average trawler owner with more D.Y.I. articles, feature affordable boats, etc., and not one long commercial for Nordhaven boats.

Hiya,
Ancora, I wouldn't hold my breath for any changes. I've been on the PMM site recently-HOLY CRAP! What a mess! It's going from bad to worse. Evidently they have one IT guy who is trying to "improve" the website and all he seems to be doing is to create a FUBAR. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts, when PMM first started out it was GREAT! but slowly started to slip into what you describe as a large ad for Nordhavn. I have nothing against Nordhavn. They fill a specific niche in the boating world and I even like some of the models (crawling around on your hands and knees in the ER of the 62' is just silly!). Nothing to do with the fact I could NEVER afford even a used one.
It seems from comments on this AND the PMM site, customer service is becoming non-existant and the articles non-relavent. I think, unfortunatley PMM's days are numbered which is a pity since there IS a need for a publication such as PMM started out to be.

While I may agree with a lot of what you say about PMM, the new look website seems to be getting a lot more activity than here lately. Many of us are on both sites and can see the merits of both,* I think we need to be careful that this thread doesn't drive TF memebrs over to PMM.* I go to PMM first (most activity) then here (Less activity but some really neat off beat threads) and then onto Living Aboard Forums as neither PMM or TF really cater for living aboard, which is where we are at. Just some thoughts from the bottom of the world

Even as bad as the PM site is technically, it has a "critical mass" of users at almost 9000 vs. a few hundred on this one. It has an international magazine constantly advertising it and driving new users to it. That's why it has a lot more activity. This one is technically far superior, but the guys don't have a massive ad budget, so they rely on people sending them over here by word of mouth or e-mail.

I still stop by the PM site occasionally, but it's so damm slow that it's unusable at times. It was around one minute per click the other day, so with about 5 clicks to get to the first message... I left!

I still stop by the PM site occasionally, but it's so damm slow that it's unusable at times.

The bride was working computers when they were on raised platforms , with cooling water pipes.

Wang and that crowd.

If I understand what her setup search shows , getting on to PM is 91 pages!!! loaded into your machine , with duplication as you change pages.

Their system seems to be intended to drive folks away , it is sloooow on a Sat System , never mind here in the woods with 56K dial up.

FF

Funny - I just grabbed the April issue that had been shoved under some other stuff and lost before I got a chance it look at it. And it actually had a couple of interesting articles.

The article on the old DeFever was good - my original (35 years ago) experience on a boat out of Anacortes as on a DeFever 65. Beautiful old boat. An the article on the GB blown into the shallows and its recovery was pretty decent.

Of course, the rest was the usual $500K+ assortment of beautiful but unaffordable hardware.

In my flying days, I used to get Flying magazine until its editors decided that if you couldn't afford multiple engines, pressurization, radar, etc etc you shouldn't even consider voyaging outside of the traffic pattern.

FF: I could not agree more. PMM site is slow and not usually worth the trouble .

PMM site is slow and not usually worth the trouble

But the mag is great if you have ZERO boating experience and think a $40,000 nav package and 22inch flat screen will take care of bothering to actually learn something.

FF

Maybe it's intentially slow, so you have time to read the ads.

Jeez FF now you tell me. I just spent 40K on my Furuno combo radar George Forman grill and my 31.33 inch plasma combo curling iron. I saw*these things advertised and*purchased both*lieu of a USCG rules and regs book/video combo. Darn it anyway. In all seriousness, the Steve D articles are usually pretty good.*