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[Roger in France]

Anyone know what gives? I have tried www.modelboats.co.uk which is the Web Site appearing in the magazine (admittedly 2004) and all I get is an advert for a Web hosting company. The same with a Google search.

I am trying to order a plan.

Roger in France.

[Colin Bishop]

Roger, the ISP pulled the plug on the Model Boats website when the Model Boats parent company, Nexus, went broke at the beginning of this year. The new owners, Encanta, promised to have a new site up and running by May, including the on line shop, but nothing has happened yet. Your best bet would be to email John Cundell the editor at editor@modelboats.co.uk and ask him what the best means of getting hold of the plan is at the moment - or if it is possible!

Colin

[gribeauval]

Current issue of Model Boats says to e-mail 
 

customer.services@encanta.co.uk

or telephone

+44 (0) 1689 899200 for plans,back issues etc

[Colin Bishop]

Good one - should have looked that up myself! 

Still, it's a bit worrying that there is still no website in evidence, especially as the ME Exhibition has effectively been cancelled as well. I'm not altogether confident that it is a postponment as stated in the current issue.

[gary r uk]

Colin
I am with you if they could not put it on now why would it be any different later in the year when theres a skip load of shows happening no mate its cancelled and we were going to win a few gold medels as well in C4 class oh well.
cheers
gary rowe

[kayem]

What with John Cundell's impending retirement and one or two other things, I'm starting to worry a little about the future of Model Boats magazine. JC himself has given me two or three 'definite' dates for the re-instatement of the MB website, all of which passed without anything happening. He always sounds pretty optimistic about the magazine's future under Encanta, but with him departing and lack of any apparent action on several fronts, you do have to wonder.

[smitboat]

He is not the only editor on the move either Model Engineer is going as well. And a very good pal at RCME is getting very cold feet...oh dear..

Still No Webb
Editors Going
Not many shops stocking mags
Plans touch and go again
Even getting a subscription mag not easy
What is going on
2007 what next

The future looks dim.

[Roger in France]

Thanks for your help, chaps and the depressing comments!

I have attempted to speak on the telephone to them today but after three times being handed "pillar to post" I get an engaged tone!

Don't you just hate these large Companies and their takeovers?

I spent 3 [yes 3] hours this morning trying to deal with Symantec/Norton who have replied to three Emails of mine saying they would reply in 3 days (automated message). No reply, ever. Today after two calls to Ireland, 3 calls transferred to India, I get the help I needed. Damn me but the guy ends up saying "Symantec prides itself on CUSTOMER SATISFACTION"!!!!!!!

So it looks like "Model Boats" is on the way out.

I will see if I can get a plan before they fold. I will keep the Forum advised of progress or lack of it.

Roger in France.

[smitboat]

Be quick sir be very quick.


Any one like to add more, the magazine will be safe in accountants hands what you say chaps.

Show or no show the final straw. Does the MD of Encanta care big bucks and gone

[JayDee]

Hello,

Why do Model Boat magazines have so many pictures of FULL sized boats in them ?.
I used to count how many "full size" pictures there were, now I don't need to, they all have numbers on them !.

If a Car Magazine devoted to say, Volvo's, was your choice and the mag was full of Ford or BMW cars, I am sure it would not sell well.
Yet we happily part with our cash, for a mag with a load of "None Model Boats" in it.

Sure there will be some one who is making one of the featured full sized boats, but not enough to flood the mag each Month with them.

Why not a Centre spread showing a MODEL BOAT, instead of yet another huge glossy picture of a full sized one !.
OR, just rename the magazines,  "SOME MODEL BOATS"  and  " SOME MARINE MODELS" etc.

I have stopped buying them because of this.

The above was posted earlier this year.

There is no way anyone can blame the Content of a Magazine on a large Corporation, the only person to blame is the magazines Editor, he and he alone is responsible for the printed Content.
The last Model Boats mag I looked through in "Smiths" was the only one for years that there seemed to be MORE pictures of model boats than full sized ones.
Was this a panic attack on the part of the Editor, realizing the writing was on the wall ?.
The circulation figures for the magazines must have fallen drastically in the last ten years, due to the lack of "Model" photos.
Any further thoughts on this?.

John.  ???

[Tug]

Roger, you could always tell us of the plan you seek, who knows there may be one here, or there?  Tug

[anmo]

Sadly, I have to agree with JayDee. As a long time reader of both magazines, it's seemed to me for several years that both Editors were taking the easy way out when it came to finding content for their magazines, particularly so in the case of Model Boats. Comparatively little of the content is really relevant to the title, and even less is really new, or even about modelling. Compare the current state of affairs to a copy of MB from 10, 20 or 30 years ago, and see how it has changed. Of course I do have some interest in full size boats, but I don't want to find that so much of the content of a model magazine is devoted to them, leaving not much room for the models. That just looks to me like an exercise in page-filling. Also, why do kit reviews have to take up so much space? New kits used to get just a descriptive paragraph in 'What's New', now they get that, and also ten or twelve pages, often even more, spread over two or three issues, lovely for the manufacturers, but has anyone asked the readers if that's what they want? Don't these kits contain proper instructions? The amount of space devoted fairly recently to the slow motion assembly of a box of bits of pre-cut wood to make yet another static model of HMS Victory that will be identical to several thousand others seems pretty pointless to me. To make matters even worse, Model Boats repeated the whole saga, twenty two bloody pages!, in their recent 'Kit Special', and they had the nerve to charge readers £4.49 for the opportunity to read all of this a second time.

[smitboat]

I like the format mind you have not seen a reader survey in years and the way it is going may never any body else see the writing on the wall.

bye bye mag----- maggie bye bye  showing my age I think with that one.

The kit speacial was very good and worth every penny well done to the staff was it there final touch though.

[FullLeatherJacket]

On balance it looks like MB would best suit the guy who wants to make a plank-on-frame static model of a modern warship and then stick a Taplin Twin diesel motor and a 50 year-old radio set in it and go offshore-racing. Me? I don't do any of that stuff and so my copy of Model Boats is frequently just flicked through the once. That's poor value when it's well over three quid a throw. Even the Scale column has begun to look like one long advert for certain (favoured?) manufacturer's products. I couldn't agree more with Anmo about unduly long kit reviews - 22 pages on one static model is definitely taking the p155.
I'm sorry, JC, but I don't think I'll be renewing my subscription for MB for these reasons and also because of the uncertainty of its continued publication. BTW I stopped taking The Other Mag long ago because I'm not interested in yachts or "gas" boats either.
Suit yourselves.

[Roger in France]

I have to report SUCCESS....

I Emailed the Plans Service and had a reply in hours offering to accept an Email Order. So my order has gone off...watch this space.

What I am after is Plan MM 897 "HMS Kent". My uncle died while serving on her in Hong Kong in 1910.

Thanks for all the help Mayhemnauts.

Roger in France.

[bobdoc]

I agree with FullLeatherJacket re usefullness of the mags. For me, Mayhem has replaced them ... and some!

[Colin Bishop]

Well, I have to confess to being a bit puzzled about some of the comments on this thread. The Model boating mags have to cater for a very wide international readership and if your particular interests fall into a relatively narrow range then obviously only some of the content will be of direct relevance to you. Having looked through the last couple of issues of MB the vast majority of the illustrations are of models or modelling activities. Yes, there are some pictures of full size boats, in Rangefinder for example, but if you are going to make models of full size craft it is quite helpful to know what they actually look like! In the so called "golden years" a good while ago, Model Boats ran a series by myself on the subject of Atlantic Liners and the only reference I made to modelling was to give references to available plans. The idea was to strike up an interest in this type of subject and I don't recall anyone complaining. Some people have commented negatively about the ongoing articles by David Wiggins but I'm told that they are in fact extremely popular - I admit to enjoying them myself. It's easy to try and score cheap points off the magazine editors just because they don't cover the subjects you like but they are probably more in tune with the overall market than you will ever be because their living depends on it! I have always found JC to be very well informed indeed on all aspects of model boating and his range of contacts is huge. I imagine that the same would apply to Chris Jackson too. Yes, I loved the stuff they used to print in the old "Model Maker" days but times have changed and those days aren't coming back as much of the debate we have on Mayhem clearly demonstrates. I sincerely hope that MB isn't going down the pan. I would suspect that while the mag keeps itself afloat financially, there isn't much left over to fund websites or to underwrite expensive exhibitions. But we will have to see.

[anmo]

..... BTW I stopped taking The Other Mag long ago because I'm not interested in yachts or "gas" boats either.
Suit yourselves.

Once again, I have to agree with most of what Mr Jacket says, but unlike him I haven't quite given up on Marine Modelling, and for some time I've found it the more interesting of the two magazines, though not by very much. Unlike Mr Jacket, I have some interest in sailing, so I at least skim through that part of the magazine. As for 'gas boats' though, something I probably have in common with at least 95% of MM's readership, is rather less than zero interest in them, and that goes for almost everything else that Rick Eyrich (his friends probably call him 'Bubba') writes. What is the point of filling pages with articles on painting or finishing where every single item used is unobtainable in the UK where almost all of the readers reside? Perhaps the magazine has a simply enormous US readership, but somehow I doubt that. Looks like yet another example of 'lazy editorship' page-filling to me.

[barriew]

For the past two or three years I have had subscriptions to both mags. I decided this was getting too expensive, so one had to go. My decision was MB - just renewed MMI as I find it marginally more interesting.

Web sites don't have to cost a fortune - a simple site with some contact information, how to order plans etc would only cost tens of pounds per annum and at least give them a web presence. I am sure several members of the forum could produce one for them.

Barrie

[Liverbudgie2]

Well said Colin, Moderated
regards as always,

Liverbudgie

[uboatbuilder]

I always have a quick flick through in the mags section in WH Smiths and if something takes my interest i buy it, if not it goes back on the shelf.

Grant :)

[Oddy-B]

I my opinion, and being new to modelling I have Used this website and subscribe to Model Boat magazine, I can honestly say I have picked up more information, ideas, pictures and useful reading on this website than in the mag. If they did bring a website out I don't think would ever match a site like this one.

Just my thoughts

Les

[smitboat]

Out of both mags which articles are liked the best or better still by whom?

[FullLeatherJacket]

Admiral Bishop
 
I have to confess that my interest falls into a very narrow category.........it's scale workboats; much the same as practically every model you'll find at most local clubs on a Sunday morning. You may know the types - tugs, fishing boats, launches, buoy tenders, ORSV's, MTB's - that sort of minority interest.
 
I'm afraid I don't remember your series on Atlantic liners, but then again I don't suppose I would be expected to, would I?

In my opinion "scoring cheap points" off model mag editors has rather less to do with commenting on the content of their comics and more to do with persuading them that lengthy articles on genuine minority interests will appeal to their general readership...........oh, yes - and filling your boots at fifty quid a page for writing them.

One day Anmo and I will agree 100% on something. It's getting dangerously close.

........but like I always say, suit yourself.

[Colin Bishop]

FLJ, Do I detect a slight note of sarcasm here?!  :)

I would have thought your quoted categories do indeed fall into a minority interest as, by the nature of things, do most other people's. No, I don't expect you would remember my series on liners, it must have been about 20 years ago and they are not exactly workboats, but some people are quite interested in them all the same. Only a minority of course. Yes a lot of people do build workboats as you describe. Others build yachts or sailing vessels, some are into I/C boats, there are even some who like to build period models and an even smaller minority who prefer miniatures. Then there are those people who like the related technical stuff, building techniques, electronics, engineering and the like. It takes all sorts which is what makes the hobby so interesting.

The magazine editors have to cater for all these aspects of the hobby and it ain't as easy as you may think. Quite apart from the actual content of the material submitted to them for publication they also have to take account of the presentation. there is a natural preference for a relevant article, nicely illustrated and written in the Queen's English and spelt properly over something which may need complete rewriting and photos to be commissioned. As an excellent example I would commend Paul Freshney's recent series in MB on building his M15 monitor. Sorry it's not a workboat but his articles are lucidly written and packed with practical information on building techniques and everyone with a genuine interest in the hobby can learn something from them.

I would not agree with your rather derogatory description of Model Boats and Marine Modelling International as "comics" and nor I suspect would most other people. The editors do their best to serve a speciialised but still diverse market and on the whole I think they do a pretty good job. As far as those who write for them are concerned, they do it as a public service as they get paid peanuts for their efforts. That's the financial model on which these "minority interest" magazines operate. Publish the same number of words in Practical Boat Owner and you'd get ten times as much - I know.

If you don't like what's on offer then you don't have to buy the magazines. On the other hand if you present them with a well written and illustrated article, even if it's about workboats, then I'm sure you will be welcomed with open arms.

I'm sorry if you feel rather miserable about it all but I'm afraid I don't share that view. Still, whatever floats your boat I suppose.  :)