I spent my second cup of coffee yesterday reading a current American cruising rag and the new Voile magazine...
The thing that jumps out at me about the Franco/Anglo divide is how much more critical boat and gear reviewers are in the French yachting press... Well actually, that's not a fair statement as for the French reviewers to be more critical that would imply that American reviewers were in fact critical in some shape or form as opposed to ... Well, the word fawning does come to mind.
The reviewers of the new Varianta 44 in Voile quite liked the boat but were quick to point out both good and bad points and they pointed out a lot of stuff that could be improved...
That's just a taste but these guys seriously get into the workings, build and performance of a boat they review. You might say they take their job seriously!
I won't bother to go into how the American magazine toadied to their advertisers wants and quoted whole passages from various press releases... Sort of depressing as it really shows a great disrespect for their readers as well as a serious misunderstanding of what a reviewers job is... Here's a hint: it does not involve the word pimp!
For those who'd like to see how a real boat review works you can find the Voile review in PDF format here (You'll have to click on reports)
