New Year Message from the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation

New Year Message from the Royal Cruising Club Pilotage Foundation

The Director and management team send their best wishes

A year ago we wished you all a ‘safe, fulfilling and enjoyable 2021 – and certainly an improvement on the year past’. We hope this was so although, as we have all experienced, it is evident that we live in strange times.
At the Pilotage Foundation, the lifting of lockdown restrictions saw some recovery in the sales of our titles with the return to cruising for many, although the overall level of sales of our titles is still below pre-pandemic levels. The downturn arising from the pandemic is well reflected in royalty income in our financial year to 30 September 2021 which was down some 29% over the previous year.
We were, however, pleased to publish new editions of Mediterranean Spain in May and Atlantic Islands in September which have both been well received by the market. And reflecting the continuing expansion of our worldwide coverage, we have added a new edition of Southern Californian Channel Islands, available on the Foundation’s website. Otherwise, the restrictions on travel in many parts has limited the authors’ ability to research new editions. While research has continued or is now completed on new editions for Germany & Denmark, Norway, Islas Baleares and Atlantic France, for other titles progress on the new editions has been largely frustrated and is now expected to be completed in the coming year.
Meanwhile, recognising the growing popularity of digital alternatives in publication, in September Imray launched the Explore with Imray digital pilotage product. This new digital publication, which allows the presentation of points of pilotage information on a map display, now features a steadily growing amount of data from Pilotage Foundation titles and over 470 subscribers. The Pilotage Foundation is pleased to be supporting Imray in this exciting new initiative which promises to be an attractive means of providing quality pilotage to a wider market and has considerable potential for development, both as a social media tool and as a means of providing further information.
Explore with Imray was one amongst a number of presentations to the Authors’ Conference held at the Royal Lymington Yacht Club in November. We were delighted to host this conference, which was shared with the RCC Club Cruising Information editors, and to get together with our authors, publishers, and other supporters following the postponement of this event last year. The conference covered a range of issues including developments in the processing of cruising information reports, book content and production, and methods of research, as well as Explore with Imray. It was generally considered a valuable and enjoyable event. The conference was also an opportunity to introduce those new to our management team:
Katie Schuster, who takes over social media responsibilities from Hilary Keatinge and brings with her a wealth of experience in this field, and Janet Murphy, who joins us as a trustee following a career as editorial director at Adlard Coles/Bloomsbury and brings to the Foundation her valuable knowledge and understanding of the publishing industry.