Welcome...
Whisper it quietly but this wretched virus might actually have some upsides for boating. With foreign holidays off the cards, limited opportunities to spend money and entire families stuck at home desperate for things to do, boating looks like a very appealing option. What better way to spend time together as a family while learning a new skill and maintaining your social distance from the worryingly crowded beaches than buying a boat, motoring out to a deserted bay and dropping the hook?
It certainly helps explain why dealers have experienced an explosion in sales of stock boats. One broker we spoke to said that anything under £50,000 that was ready to go was flying out the door so fast it was
‘barely touching the sides’, while another reckoned he’d sold close to
100 JET SKIS in the last six weeks. I can well believe it, I’ve had two calls myself from former colleagues in the car world, both of whom are now looking to buy a boat. It’s not all good news, builders of larger boats are having a tougher time, but the influx of newcomers to boating can only be a good thing for everyone in the long run.
So whether you’re a regular reader or a newbie picking up MBY for the first time, keep boating, keep healthy and keep on buying the mag! As an extra little incentive for the newcomers out there we’re offering a very special trial subscription offer of 6 issues for £6 – just go to
WWW.MAGAZINESDIRECT.COM/QMY/67AP and sign up now.
DON’T MISS OUT
Opportunities to shoot new videos to support the magazine content have been few and far between lately, but I’m glad to report the cameras are rolling again now. Jack has completed his first post-lockdown video sea trial of the new GRANDEZZA 37 and made a virtual tour of a secondhand AXOPAR 28 for our Used Boat guide. But I reckon I picked the winning ticket this month by going to shoot the glorious restored
DUNKIRK LITTLE SHIP on p56 of this issue. You can see videos of all three and Jon Mendez’s tutorial on how to coil ropes at WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/YBWTV