When Motor Boats Monthly Came To Call
Members will no doubt have seen Alan Wallers Moonraker featured not only in the 6 page feature in Motor Boat Monthly (July edition) but Power Game 11 ( bottom left thumb nail) even made the front cover. Readers of Moonraker International may have wondered how MBM decided on the feature article. Well, when through these' pages, and following my article `NOT A PENNY LESS, MBM found out that Alan's boat was the last of the line. They wrote to him suggesting a full feature complete with action shots at sea and… lets ask Alan to take up the very interesting story.MBM sent their Features Editor Jake Kavanagh down to Southsea Marina where my boat is moored, and commissioned a photographic boat, which came out of Chichester, and a first class professional photographer who arrived from Lymington. After a very nice lunch at Southsea Marina we went to our boats for the action shots. The seas were slightly higher than I would normally go out in, but as everything had been arranged and the boat can take a rough sea, we went for it. Jake Kavanagh said it would produce some good shots!
I had to go maximum speed (25 knots) towards the stem of the photographer's boat, turn to port and, with a swell from the photographer's boat and some general rough sea, it was rather hairy but it produced the shot that the magazine wanted. Other shots had to wait until the sun came from behind the clouds. Altogether, 75 photographs were taken including everywhere inside the boat. It all looks neat and tidy inside the magazine, but we had to keep moving things about which the photographer did not like in the shot.
Before the Editor left, he said that, if the photographs were good, one might be selected for the front cover. It all depended on the next day's sea trial on a Windy Boat at Lymington.
Later, Jake Kavanagh telephoned to say 1 had made the front cover and he was very pleased with all the photographs and the article. He read out part of the article and used part of our Moonraker Owners Club article on my boat, which appeared in issue 2. I do not expect you got any royalties? I fear not Ed.! If any of our Owners Club Magazine readers have not had a copy of MBM, I think it is a good read even if I am biased.
I have since written and thanked the Editor and his team and told him to wait for my next article on ' The Great Electric Rip Off' which is still in the investigation stage but should save thousands of boat owners money. Keep reading MBM to find out more!