Dare to Say No

i like the Africa Queen , it could be fixed by the captain , could use different fuels , it was a very efficient hull form and the layout could be changed .

 

As always....#122 is a first class post by our friend fc...thankyou.

Beneteau builds a bigger (interior volume), faster boat, for less money....how are you going to argue with that? One way is to change the definition of "die hard environmentalist". This is happening, but it takes time to change the perceptions of an entire population. Very young school children are now indoctrinated into being "environmentally conscious". Eventually they will grow up and start making buying decisions.

In the past dozen years I personally have been involved in introducing 3 different, "more efficient" designs to the market. Two have fallen flat and the third is not causing much interest so far...though it's early.

I produced the Yellow Cedar design in 1996 to illustrate an article in Wooden Boat Magazine. She is 38' by 10', about 15,000 pounds loaded to cruise, and travels at about 7 knots using .75 usg per hour. Hundreds of people wrote and called me when this design was published, hundreds more visited her at boat shows, no one bought one:?:


In 2001 I produced the Passagemaker Lite concept, 46' by 11'6" and cruising at 10 knots with twin 60HP engines......again no interest....not a single professional boatbuilder contacted me.....one boat has been built but is still incomplete.......


And now we're involved with the TimberCoast Troller, marketed by Bartender Boatshttp://www.bartenderboats.com/ She's a 22' by 7'4" double-ended full displacement 7 knot boat with 30 installed HP.


I have also been involved in one design that established a market trend, the Hinckley Picnic Boat. When that was designed there was no market for it in sight, the company owner's were building one-off boats for themselves. Out of nowhere people wanted this boat, and what resulted was a huge advertising and PR campaign. That sold lots of boats. Was marketing key in establishing those sales? I don't know....but marketing tells us that if you say it's great long and loud enough, it will be seen as great. None of my "more efficient" designs mentioned above has had anything like the Hinckley ad campaign.

As mentioned above none of these designs employ rocket science, they are are all based on well known principals of naval architecture. It is not yacht designers who decide what a builder will market next, it is the company executives. The CEO asks the marketing people, who say two things.....1) build it just like XXX Yachts product but make it green and add another bathroom or some crazy windows. Or 2) Lets have a focus group of owner's and find out what they want. In other words the CEO will be told by the sales people to build more of the same boat....over and over.

It's very difficult to break out of this box......

 

I see a lot of designers boats being talked about here , but not buyers boats .
I guess time will tell . I dont think you can convince the majority that 100 year styling is hip , but I dont much care for the Italian swirly top boats either.
How about a nice efficient design that looks of this era .

Then go to a boat show with renderings and see if any one is interested.

 

Tad nice work - really good stuff.

What absolute eats me up is that even with the world economy in tatters people still want "the bigger the better"
small and efficient just wont sell - folks want "gin palaces"
at our boat show -which is tiny in comparason to what you guys are used to - the WOMAN strut around with the rich husband telling them what they want in a boat, crazy ****.
I get local folks writing to me from time to time, asking some advice, and ALL OF THEM want the "bigger is better"
efficiency is for guys on this forum not the buying public - they want Beneteau trawlers and "smart stuff"

by the way the beneteau 360 deg videos are very well made

 

I think you summed that nicely Tad.

 

Those old dudes had to wait along time to get rich enough to afford the hot wife and the big boat . Engineers are the only one that can get aroused looking at stats . Boats are about being cool , chick want to be impressed with power and style , not Yankee frugality . Yea there are some
hippy chicks left , but do you really want handmade sails out of cotton.
No the fine hot mama wants bling . And heck most of the guys are paying the
big bucks to buy their way out of nerddome anyway . If it aint cool, it will not sell .

 

Lots of truth there too , frank !

Handmade sails out of cotton would be o k for a while ,if you don`t leave them in the sun too long...

 

I don't think it had one bit to do with the marketing. That was the effect, not the cause. If I had the money I would buy that one over the other two also. Without any loud and lengthy marketing campaign. Nothing other than a photo of all 3 to look at. Why? Purely it's appearance compared to the others. It just looks um......."cooler". I don't care if I get a 2nd bedroom in the others, I rather be seen in this one!

What's being left out of this rich vs poor, eco vs gas hog, bells and whistles vs simple and refined discussion is the most important part. Your average person buys with their eyes first, and could care less about the engineering and years and years of refinement. In fact, IMO years and years of refinement typically equates to "antiquated looking"

 

It has EVERYTHING to do with the marketing.
How do you think you got to see that picture in the first place ?
Not to mention all the people that actually bought one......

 

I couldn't agree more. Would you rather spend your money on something that looks like a B-52 bomber or a Stealth Bomber.

Anyway - you said something that caught my eye:

I have another post going on where I'm trying to get to the bottom of how things work in this industry. I called it "how do things work in this industry" haha. Some good info so far, but you just hit on something.... Is that ever done? Where one of you guys will take renderings of your design to a boat show and see what interest it drums up? If so, what's the overall goal?

1)The hope of taking orders for the boat from individuals?

2) The hope of a boat mfgr coming along and wanting to build several?

If either happens, then what? REALLY CURIOUS.

I am pondering this very idea right now. But I am new to the industry, it will cost a bunch for the show space, and I don't want to do it if nothing solid will come from it. I know I will have interest. Interest isn't my goal and if that's all I can expect, just interest and enthusiasm and not much else, then I may opt to save my money.

Sorry this is off topic, maybe I should copy paste it as a reply to my other topic but that seems more confusing.

 

Yeah eventually, but he said out of nowhere people were wanting that boat and THEN the company decided to push the marketing. Im saying it's not surprising to me that it generated lots of interest BEFORE the 1000's of glossy marketing brochures were done - because it looks great. I don't think it was a fluke of great marketing. Think of all the ugly domestic cars that have launched with TONS of marketing being crammed down the public throat, then fell flat. Why?

 

And the appereance is somewhat a product of the AD and the marketing dept.. A huge amount of their budget's is directed to the media, to get their products promoted accordingly.. Allways easier if there can be seen some resemblance to famous racers allready seen in the news, and of course who can say VOLVO 70's or F1's aren't looking cool..
Boat's considered "different" by the media are presented time to time but with remarks like "experimental", "nostalgy", "gearlooses" etc..

 

Eventually ? No Immediately !That`s what the 'publicity machine' is all about:
Big budget , 'saturation bombing'
It does not matter how great it looks, IF NO ONE SEES IT !

Their marketing certainly was no "fluke" ....but rather highly targeted.
And expensive. And sophisticated ...did I mention expensive ?

The " ugly domestic cars that have launched with TONS of marketing "
have sold in the multiple thousands.Most of what is clogging our roads is " ugly".Look around....lots of fugly.....everywhere.....

 

this boat business is about schmooze , i think .
I alway liked a fast lobster boat before it was a pick-nick boat , or maybe it was what was called a bass boat in the old days . The Hinkley is a nice boat,
but dont think there was not a lot of schmooze involved in moving that product . For many the Hinkley name may have been a strong motivator . I doubt that many were sold to other than the east coast establishment intelligentsia. Hinkley was one of those names that was tossed around , with the likes of topsider , Concordia , Nantucket , and all . hardly a peoples boat,
but better than a bayliner .

 

I actually like the Ellis ......