Rhino wrote :
How come people are all excited about the Blade F12? Why isn't the Hobie Bravo good enough for them?
Pat wrote :
I have seen no evidence that suggests that an old heavy slow boat or a new light fast boat has anything to do with increased participation. It's never going to be about the boat. It's a people thing.IMO
...
There isn't a shortage of good designs out there.
There seems to be a lack of good advertising.
I will try to keep this short.
I think, Pat makes some very good points in his last two statements.
I personally feel however that a good advertising can be maximized by the specifics of the boat. These two things are not unrelated. For example, it is alot easier to advertise a light fast boat succesfully then a slow heavy boat. That fact that in history many counterexamples are to be found it because persons associated with superior products often allow themselves to become complacent. This while the persons associated with the inferior product are well aware that they need to the message right the first time around and stay focussed; not missing a single opportunity.
The real trick is to get a good design and then make sure that the marketing is spot on and that everybody stays focussed.
Having said this I do feel that the first statement by Pat can not be succesfully defended. Afterall their are many more F18's around then Prindle 18's these days. This while fleets of P18's could contain 100's in the 80's and 90's.
The real principle is that a chosen design should sufficiently light and performant, the rest is then succesful marketing. Again, the design and marketing should work together and give eachother a good starting point.
That was the reason (among other things) that started the F12's and against the Bravo.
Now F12 has run into some trouble lately and the Bravo is claimed to sell well in USA but I haven't seen it pop up on the radar screen yet. So we'll just have to wait a little longer and see what happens.
But I admit that proper marketing and "people oriented" class building is what is often neglected, overlooked or simply regarded unimportant. Personally I'm not impressed by Hobie marketing with respect to their new models. Basically they are all failing as far as Europe is concerned. The only two doing well are H16 and Tiger, but the rest of their EU product list of 17 boats is doing surprisingly unimpressive. Maybe they sell lots of them, but we are simply not seeing them on the water.
Wouter
