Major changes in global sailing media

by Jedda Murphy on 14 Jan 2016 Sail-World and YachtsandYachting join forces as YY Online Services Ltd., the publishers of YachtsandYachting.com, have announced the purchase of Sail-World group of websites at the London Boat Show.

Sail-World is the largest sailing news network in the world, with over 20 websites running from a single, geolocating content management system. The sites attract over 300,000 unique visitors per month and 650,000 visits. According to independent rating agencies, Sail-World.com is the most popular sailing website in the world.

Sail-World Australia started in 2000 and took over the sailing news pioneer site Aaron Goldwater's Sailing-online in 2002 which had started some eight years earlier.

Sail-World's network extended to Asia in 2003 and then into New Zealand in 2005, thence to Canada and the USA and Europe in 2006 and over the last decade the network has built huge international audiences. At the same time YachtsandYachting.com has built easily the largest UK readership.

The founder of the TetraMedia Marine Group, that operates Sail-World.com, Rob Kothe, will become 'Editor-at Large' of the large group, with ongoing concentration on Australia.

He said today, 'We are pleased and proud that this merger has come to fruition. Mark (Jardine, the Managing Director of Y&Y Online services) and I have long recognised that we as a team would be formidable. Our combined reach will deliver news to the largest sailing audience in the world.

'The merging of resources and talent means we are able to rationalise programming and publication efforts, which will allow us to build on our editorial strengths.

'This will be very positive for Sail-World Asia Pacific audiences, with a raft of enhancements emanating from the expanded group.'

Jardine, commented today 'Combining these two great resources into a single organisation will provide the best sailing news network on the planet. There have been many parallels in the growth of the two sites, but very little overlap in readership due to domination in respective territories. Each site has utilised different methods for getting the latest news to readers, and we aim to bring together the best practice from each website to make both stronger.'

'This will be very positive for Sail-World Asia Pacific audiences, with a raft of enhancements emanating from the expanded group.

Sail-World has a worldwide network of editors, including highly respected writer Richard Gladwell of Sail-World New Zealand who said about the merger, 'It's a great combination, Mark and his YachtsandYachting.com team lead the way in the dinghy scene and we have strengths with Olympics, America's Cup and major offshore events and between us we lead the pace on major issues and events. I am especially looking forward to seeing a forum for our combined audiences.'

'We will continue to offer our advertisers strong editorial support and our much greater access to the UK market will open a raft of opportunities for Asia Pacific companies,' he added.

Sail-World Asia's Guy Nowell agreed, 'Sail-World is already a great 24/7 world-wide network. Now with YachtsandYachting.com's large UK audience and the combined technology and resources, it's a great step forward.'

The next few months will see the technologies behind the two websites start to combine and the editorial content of both sites increase.

Companies interested in reaching the global audience of the Sail-World.com and YachtsandYachting.com network should contact Brendan Maxwell via advertising@sail-world.com or telephone +61 (0)280061873 or Marketing Manager Sarah Heron via sarah@yachtsandyachting.com or telephone +44 (0) 7721 741122.