Tuesday, August 30, 2011

One Crazy Summer

I haven't posted anything in a while because it truly has been one crazy summer.

Just this morning the Daily Boater was featured in a British boating newsletter, with a nice write-up about our boating news site: Boats On TV Newsletter.

But what really kept me busy this summer was all the exposure that Boat Name Gear has received. The timing couldn't be better, as Boat Name Gear will be exhibiting at the Newport (RI) International Boat Show next month for the first time (if you are going to the show, please let me know via the Boat Name Gear facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=235880156440536).

What exposure? The best kind - inexpensive and widespread. One of our endeavors has even helped encourage people to boat! Over the past few months, Boat Name Gear has been one of a handful of top-brand sponsors of a contest being administered by the NMMA. We are in good company with likes of Sperry Top-Siders and BoatU.S. - all offering prizes to encourage people to invite their friends out boating (Welcome to the Water Contest). We gave away dozens of t-shirts with the "Welcome to the Water" logo across the back, and each of the winner's boat name embroidered on the front-left chest. Also, Boat Name Gear has been in the Sun Sentinal, the Baltimore Sun, and in an editorial article in the Miami Herald.

On top of this, we've been adding a bunch of new products - including environmentally-friendly premium polo shirts, fleece blankets, and sailcloth boat bags.

The other sites in the Nautical Sites network, including FirstBoat.com, Daily Boater, BoatlinX and the Boat Name Blog,  have been adding advertisers such as Empire Covers.

All that, and we survived Hurricane Tropical Storm Irene - only one of our websites was down (FirstBoat.com for a few hours, and yes, we're finding a new web host company), and none of our Internet orders were lost or even delayed. For some pictures of some boats and marinas that were not so lucky, check out our collection on the Daily Boater.

There's more, but there are not many more boating days left this year in the northeast. We'll see you soon in Newport!