Survey of Subscribers to The Boating Bible Manual of Seamanship Newsletter
In June 2010 we conducted a survey of all subscribers to our free newsletter. We received responses from 23% of our
readers, for which
we thank them. This is a very pleasing participation rate.
Here are the results:
Do you own a yacht?
Are you thinking of buying a yacht?
We were surprised and pleased to see that 55% of
our readers are yacht owners, with 35% thinking
of buying a yacht (or possibly buying a new one).
What is the length of the yacht
you own or are thinking of buying?
30% of respondents own (or are thinking of buying)
a 20-25 ft yacht, 25% a 26-30 footer, with longer
vessels making up the remaining 45%.
What is your current yacht, or
future yacht likely to be, built of?
Looking at hull construction, the majority of
yachts (86%) are made of fibreglass, with 11% from
wood and just 3% aluminium.
None reported their yacht was made from steel,
ferrocement or exotics.
Where do you sail?
In response to this question we find that 77.5% sail
both on enclosed waters (harbour, lake, etc.) and
coastal. Offshore sailing made up 37%.
How do you spend most of your
sailing time?
The answers to this question showed a considerable
focus (75%) on cruising:
Day cruising 42.5%
Overnighters, weekend cruising 25%
Extended cruising 7.5%
The 25% who spend most of their time racing were
split:
Day racing 22.5%
Racing - overnight or longer 2.5%
Would you like to see articles on?
More than 80% of respondents are keen to read about
Boat Handling Skills and Navigation in our newsletter
and on our website.
More than 73% are interested in reading about
Seamanship, Boat Maintenance and Safety.
60% selected Passage Planning, while 50% chose DIY
Projects (a subject that, thinking about it now,
is probably part of Boat Maintenance) and just 26% want
to read about Bareboat Chartering. The latter could well
be because so many of our survey respondents are boat
owners!
Would you be interested in a Passage
Planning Service?
We were pleased to see that Yes and Maybe accounted
for 82% of readers.
If you are wrestling with a sailing
problem, would you like to contact us directly about it?
This question drew an almost identical response to
the previous question about a passage planning service, with Yes and Maybe being selected by just
under 80%.
What are the three most important
topics you want to read more about in our weekly
newsletter and/or in articles on our website?
Here we gave readers the opportunity to input
their own suggestions.
Boat handling skills/tips - 51%
Safety - 43%
Boat Maintenance - 43%
Seamanship - 38%
Navigation - 27%
Weather - 8%
After all that, our survey respondents gave a
further 89% of answers that could not be grouped
- but they could well provide article subjects.
(Note to those who like to check on up on figures
provided: Each person gave three responses, hence
the percentages above add up to 300% not 100%.)
We were, however, surprised and a little
disappointed that just 8% of our survey respondents included Weather as a topic for future newsletters and articles.
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