Two ClearLine clients make Superyacht Awards shortlist

It’s great to see that both the yacht designers that we represent have made the shortlist in the 2008 World Superyacht Awards.  Rainsford Saunders Design has been nominated for the ‘Best Newcomer of the Year’ award for the refit of the 1930s classic motoryacht R/S Eden (see Boat International August 2007), and Humphreys Yacht Design for their Ermis2 - a 37m high performance motoryacht just launched in NZ - which is on the shortlists both for ‘Best Semi-Displacement or Planing Motoryacht in the 30m to 39m Size Range’ and for the ‘Technology Award’.  Congratulations to both, and we hope to see them on the podium when the final results are announced  at the ceremony being held in Venice in April.

Navico appoints ClearLine

ClearLine has been appointed by Navico Norway AS to provide the company with PR, advertising and general marketing support services across the EMEA region. 

Navico is the largest marine electronics company in the world, with a stable of brands that includes B&G, Eagle, Lowrance, Northstar and Simrad.  ClearLine is delighted to be working with such a prestigious group, and 2008 looks set to be an exciting year with an ambitious programme of new product launches planned.

Earls Court Boat Show - the verdict

It’s funny how your memory plays tricks (writes Matt).  I hadn’t set foot in Earls Court since the end of the last Boat Show to be held there, and the impression that instantly struck me was that I’d forgotten how small it is.  Compared to Excel, let along RAI in Amsterdam, Earls Court is just tiny!  There can be no going back, there just isn’t the space.

Impression number two, at 1130 on the Tuesday morning, was that the place was almost completely deserted.  The guys and girls on the stage did their best to liven the place up with fashion shows, rowing competitions and interviews, but my heart went out to them as they served it all up to groups of sometimes half a dozen or less.  Most of the people that we bumped into in the aisles seemed to be other members of the industry checking things out just like us - so the number of punters must have been pretty minimal.

Interestingly, though, the exhibitors seemed a lot happier than we might have expected.  Customers were few, but had money to spend, was the majority verdict.  This can be a bit of a euphemism for not much going on, but the enthusiasm seemed genuine, so maybe it was shaping up better than first impressions seemed to indicate.

All in all, an interesting day out, and definitely a nostalgia-fest, but a rival for Excel?  No!  That ship, as they say, has sailed.

New team member

Welcome to Catharine Esmat, who joins the Winchester office.  Catharine is an experienced editor / copywriter, with a cv that includes spells as a Senior Editor at Longman and Communications Manager at BT Syntegra.  She also speaks French, Italian and Arabic. 

Her email is catharine@clearlinecommunications.co.uk and you can reach her on the usual number.

METS 2007

Always our favourite show - everyone’s there, and a lot of business gets done.  Matt arrived a day earlier to attend the distributor conference for Nexus Marine AB - a great opportunity to catch up with their distributors from around the world and get a feel for current conditions in their local markets.  After that it was into the main show, with the usual round of press calls plus gallons of coffee with clients past, present and hopefully future.

Again, generally a good vibe with our counterparties reporting good sales / strong interest in new product lines, and the sheer size of the show demonstrates just how much the leisure marine industry has expanded and matured over the past decade.  Assuming we can weather the problems of sub-prime debt, collapsing banks and a weak dollar, the industry should be in good shape for next year!

Fort Lauderdale Boat Show

We attended the Ft Lauderdale Boat Show at the end of October in support of a number of our clients, and came away feeling optimistic, particularly with regard to the superyacht end of the market.  The show was as vast as always, but rather wet as the rain came down pretty relentlessly at the beginning.  As the marquees were sited in a dish shaped car park they started taking on water, and we soon found ourselves padding across soggy carpets and doing our best to avoid the deeper puddles.

The UK presence was pretty good, with some nice looking stands grouped together in a British zone, and the buzz was consistent.  The bulk of the action though was outside, despite the rain, with big sportsfishing boats as far as the eye could see.

 In short, a great show, and we’ll certainly be back next year.

Two new press releases for McMurdo from Clearline

Today, Clearline has issued two new press releases in behalf of our client McMurdo, a division of Signature Industries Ltd. 

Mark Day is appointed new Sales Manager.  Mark will cover Europe as part of McMurdo’s strategy to build an increased sales force to cover the world.  For a copy of this press release and a high res picture of Mark, contact marina@clearlinecommunications.co.uk.

Riders lobby for PLB Land Use.  A long distance riders association are campaigning to make PLBs (personal location beacons) legal for land use in the UK.  At the moment the UK’s search and rescue infrastructure only supports the response to emergency signals at sea.  To sign a petition to back their lobby, contact me for the full press release.  marina@clearlinecommunications.co.uk.

Just back from the Monaco Yacht Show

September is one of our busiest months with the four day Monaco Yacht Show taking place within the ten day Southampton Boat Show, which makes for an interesting - and rather hyperactive - time.  We had three current clients to support at Monaco - two superyacht design houses and a leading brokerage firm - and the work that we had put in over August on the assorted newsletters, brochures and press releases ensured their success with both the superyacht media and our clients’ target customers.  We also got to look over some stunning superyachts and enjoyed the 30 degrees plus weather in an iconic setting.

ClearLine in 2007 - the story so far

Welcome to ClearLine’s new latest news section.  We hope that by describing some of the projects that we are involved in, this will illustrate to clients and potential clients the scope of what ClearLine does, and how our marketing and project management benefits companies and event organisations. 

2007 has been a very busy year for ClearLine, with the company involved in a wide range of activities right across the leisure marine sector. 

Highlights include; In the electronics and equipment area we have had an active nine months with safety electronics manufacturer McMurdo; working with their senior management and new owners to educate the market as to the change of ownership.  Instrumentation manufacturer Nexus Marine launched a number of major new products for which we handled the worldwide publicity, and we took over the PR and marketing support for Gerber Inc in the UK and Ireland as part of the takeover by that company of our long-standing client Silva Ltd. 

In the racing sector, not only were we working closely with Nexus Marine, as mentioned above, to launch their new instrumentation products, but we also worked with client Humphreys Yacht Design to announce a number of new race boat projects including an entry for the 2008 Volvo Ocean Race.  This boat is now currently under construction at yet another client of ours – Green Marine. 

We also remain highly active in the superyacht sector where we represent two designers currently working on motor and sailing yachts ranging in size from 37m up to 140m.  We handle worldwide publicity for both these – Rainsford Saunders Design and Humphreys Yacht Design – and also promote products by McMurdo and Nexus within this sector.  This year we will be attending the superyacht shows in Dubai, Monaco and Fort Lauderdale in support of our clients.  Currently we are compiling some prestige publications for top superyacht broker Yachting Partners International for new year publication. 

Our Event management desk has also been particularly busy in 2007, having organised three regattas on half of their management teams; the Bénéteau Cup, the British Classic Yacht Regatta, and the subsequent Six Metre World Championship, all held at Cowes.  From press reports to sponsorship contracts, race management to social events, we have to be multi-skilled to make these the successes that they have been. 

We have also been very pleased to work on half of the national yachting authority in the UK - the Royal Yachting Association – on a number of communications projects for the southern region, including communications to yacht clubs, and distributing stories from the RYA to the press. Overall ClearLine Communications has had an excellent and very interesting year to date, and we look forward to continuing this momentum through to the end of the year and into 2008.  

$800,000 order for McMurdo C1 Float Free Capsules

PRESS RELEASE

McMurdo, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of distress beacons and marine communications equipment, is to supply an order worth $800,000 of a quantity of C1 S-VDR float free capsules to electronics systems supplier Comas, for integration into their Blue Ocean S-VDR systems.  

Several months of collaboration between the two companies have resulted in the obtaining of the all-important ‘type approval’ to enable the McMurdo C1 float free solution to meet IMO maritime legislation, so that the fully integrated Comas SVDR system is now ready for the shipping market. 

McMurdo’s Sales & Marketing Director Jeremy Harrison comments “We are very pleased to be receiving such a high value order for the C1 SVDR float free capsule.  This is a further indication that the float free capsule solution for SVDR is proving to be a sound choice within the commercial shipping fleets.  Recent sales have demonstrated a growing level of confidence in this system. “

About the McMurdo C1-SVDR:The C1 complies with IMO regulations that require cargo ships on international voyages to be fitted with an S-VDR (Simplified Voyage Data Recorder).  In the event of a vessel sinking, the Float Free Data Capsule is automatically released from its on-deck housing, at which time an inbuilt distress beacon aids its location and safe recovery as well as automatically notifying the vessel’s distress to the maritime authorities. Using a McMurdo C1 is an alternative to installing a fixed data collection unit, and since it is free floating, is easier and quicker to retrieve, saving on substantial retrieval costs that would be incurred recovering a fixed and submerged unit.  The C1’s distress beacon transmits its GPS derived location and homing signals for a minimum period of 7 days after its release.   Once safely recovered, important voyage status information including speed, depth and course can be retrieved from its memory to subsequently analyse the factors surrounding the incident.   The C1’s integrated distress beacon signals on the Worldwide 406MHz distress frequency and has a 121.5MHz homing signal and is fully compatible with the COSPAS-SARSAT international satellite search and rescue system.  This picks up the distress signal, sending the alert to one of the many automated worldwide ground stations for forwarding to the nearest search and rescue authority.  

About the Comas Blue Ocean System: The Comas system comprises the S-VDR and optional ECDIS. (ECDIS is IMO requirement for the year 2007) Their S-VDR / Black Box (‘The Blue Ocean’) is designed to meet the requirements for an S-VDR as defined in the draft international standard IEC PAS 61996-2. The S-VDR system consists of the main unit, the processing unit, an industrial type computer (PC), and McMurdo’s Float Free Capsule. 

- ends - 

McMurdo, a division of Signature Industries Ltd is a world leading producer of  Emergency Positioning Indicating Radio Beacons (EPIRBs),  Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs) Search and Rescue Transponders (SARTs), VHF Radios and NAVTEX for the maritime and leisure markets, including shipping, yachting, aviation and outdoor adventure pursuits.  The high quality product range is manufactured in the UK utilising the very latest technology available, and in partnership with the world’s safety regulatory organisations.