I am just back in the office after attending the Adelaide Boat Show, which followed closely along behind the Club Marine Melbourne Boat Show just two weeks before.

Both shows reminded me of the strength and diversity of the Australian marine industry, and presented an excellent opportunity for us to show the public at large just how exciting, unique and accessible our great boating lifestyle is.
Other great news that has me really excited this month is the continuing steady rise in the circulation of Club Marine Magazine. We passed another significant milestone with our last edition (Volume 23-3 June/July 2007) being mailed to 92,366 subscribers, with another 8000 copies distributed to new readers at the boat shows.

Another fact we’re very proud of – our friends at Qantas tell us that Club Marine is the first magazine to regularly ‘disappear’ from the Qantas Club and Chairman’s lounges around the country – which, I?guess, means Club Marine can lay claim to being “The magazine most likely to be stolen by Australian corporate travellers.”

In stark contrast to all this good news were the effects of the horrific storms that hit the NSW coast over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend in June.

Club Marine Insurance had hundreds of boats damaged, many lost on rocks, swept up on beaches or sunk, all the way from Bateman’s Bay in the south to Newcastle and the Hunter in the north. I was incredibly proud of the way our claims staff and assessor partners banded together and worked 24/7 over the entire long weekend and for most of the next week answering calls and arranging salvage operations to help Club Marine members in need.

It is incredibly gratifying to receive letters and emails expressing thanks for the great job our people did ­– none more so than the one I got from a long-time member whose small business and home at Lake Macquarie were both partially destroyed. In addition, one of his cars was written-off, the other badly damaged and his boat was damaged by a falling tree. He sent me an email from the local library, which was the only place in town where he could get broadband access ­– and despite everything he had been through, he still took the time to let me know how kind and efficient Club Marine staff had been in all our dealings with him. You can read more about the NSW storms on page 23 of this issue.

As they say in the classics, every cloud has its silver lining, and the horrendous weather we’ve been seeing all around the country may, at least, be the first steps towards breaking the drought that has crippled most of inland Australia for the last few years.

Those of you who entrust the insurance of your boat to Club Marine – and there are more than 150,000 of you out there now – have also had some good news recently with our new and improved Pleasure Craft Insurance Policy being released on June 1.

We have gone to great lengths to ensure that the newly-introduced or enhanced features of the Policy were designed to meet the ever-changing needs of boat owners across Australia and New Zealand – and, in fact, right around the globe, as we now insure boats travelling to all points of the compass, including the Mediterranean, Caribbean, US West Coast and Alaska. I even saw a quote request go across my desk last week for a sailor who’s headed for Antarctica.

When you receive your next renewal invite, please take the time to have a read through the new Policy wording, I am confident that you will be pleasantly surprised at the improvements we’ve made. You can read more about the new Club Marine Pleasure Craft Policy on page 24.

Looking ahead to a busy few months, we’ve got some more great boat shows coming up, including Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Mandurah, as well as the excitement of Audi Race Week at Hamilton Island.

If you’re going to be at any of these great events, please drop by our stand and say hello to my team and me. Also feel free to drop me a line to ceo@clubmarine.com.au if you have something on your mind that you would like to share.

Regards,

Mark Bradley
Publisher and CEO
Club Marine Limited
E-mail: ceo@clubmarine.com.au