Mo2vation Boat dives for 2006

[OCdiving Deb]

I'm IN for the Pac Star in March.

Christian... thanks so much for all your hard work!

 

[Rickster]

Put me in for the Pacstar in March.

My thoughts are that "if you book the the boats, they will come!" I am going to try to make as many trips in 2006 as I can, which should be quite a few.

Thank you, Christain, for all the effort you are putting forth, to bring these events together. You are So appreciated here on the SoCal forum.

 

[kelpmermaid]

I'll have to check. March on the Pac Star sounds good.

One thing -- Feb 25 is the Avalon Harbor Cleanup, so that's a no-go for me.

 

[mark99]

I'm in for the Pacific Star in March. Thanks!

 

[Ken Kurtis]

The Magician's calendar says "closed" as of October 2005 and I have heard that Jerry Lewis is selling the boat.

First of all and most importantly, I don't think the Magician is for sale. (The Encore is in the process of being sold and there's a rumor - that the boat captain denies - that another LA-based boat has been sold, but not the Magician.)

Christian, I'm sure you didn't mean this to cause problems but this is not only an innaccraute statement (as far as I know) but can also be damaging to a dive boat when rumors like this start.

Bear in mind that Jerry's put a LOT of work and money into the Magician this past year. I have no idea what he spent, but he ripped out the deck, re-did the entire galley, re-worked the gates, put in ne wsteering, re-powered the engines, etc., etc. Given also that he hasn't owned the boat very long, you simply don't do all of that and then suddenly sell it.

On top of that, he's actively pursuing charters. We've not only added some 2006 dates overall, but Jerry and I talked just last week about transferring some of our Encore dates in 2006 over to the Magician.

I understand your frustration in not being able to get dates. Most of the boats roll-over the 2005 dates to 2006. So that means whoever had a date this year has right-of-first-refusal on the date next year. That eats up a lot of calendar right there.

Also remember that when a store like us (or Sport Chalet or anyone else) books a boat, we commit to it. If the boat's running light and we're going to lose money, we have to eat that. Not every trip makes money but we endeavor to run every trip. We commit to about $100K in local charters every year and Sport Chalet commits to probably $400-500K. That also gives us both some clout.

A lot of the boats have gotten burned in the past dealing with clubs and smaller charters. Either they've gotten cancelled on dates they could have sold to stores, or were asked to make financial conmcessions for light loads. I noticed one poster said earlier, "Book it and they will come." I wish it was that easy. Your first couple of trips will probably fill because of the novelty and fun of it all. But at some point, that novelty wears off and people will start saying things like, "Well, I could go Sunday but not Saturday," or "I really wanted to dive LA instead of Ventura" or "I'd like to but the kids have a soccer game."

A viable option is what Tim Burke suggested. Work with local shops (like Reef Seekers or others) who already have charter dates set aside in our normal schedule and ask us to block out spots for your group. (BTW, this is something we do with four or five local clubs.) We agree on a number of spots, a discount (with us it's usally 10%), and a time frame in which the spots need to be filled. So when only 6 ScubaBoard memebers want to go, the trip still runs because I've got my regular customers on as well.

Anyhow, it's not just as simple as "We want to go diving, why can't we find boats?" But my main thrust here (gee, I got off an a tangent and started babbling -what a surprise!!!) was that as far as I know, the Magician is NOT for sale and until such time as you hear it from Jerry's mouth that it is, I'd discount it.

 

[Rickster]

Somebody needs to update their website.

http://magicianscuba.com/schedule.htm

Looks like it is closed to me, in October, with no further updates. Hmmm:1poke:

 

[headhunter]

First of all and most importantly, I don't think the Magician is for sale. (The Encore is in the process of being sold and there's a rumor - that the boat captain denies - that another LA-based boat has been sold, but not the Magician.)

Christian, I'm sure you didn't mean this to cause problems but this is not only an innaccraute statement (as far as I know) but can also be damaging to a dive boat when rumors like this start.

<Snip>

Anyhow, it's not just as simple as "We want to go diving, why can't we find boats?" But my main thrust here (gee, I got off an a tangent and started babbling -what a surprise!!!) was that as far as I know, the Magician is NOT for sale and until such time as you hear it from Jerry's mouth that it is, I'd discount it.

Hi Ken,

I'm glad you've found your way to this thread and offered your perspective. I actually wanted your input. Since you came to one of our boat trips, I tried to send you a PM (Private Message) through ScubaBoard asking you to visit this thread and offer any thoughts you might have, but your user options are set up to not receive them.

You are right, I have no intention of causing any harm to anyone's business. It was simply an unsubstantiated comment that someone had made to me and in hind sight, I should not have repeated it.

So for the record, I offer my personal and public apology to Jerry Lewis for repeating an unsubstantiated comment related to the Magician. As far as I'm concerned and unless I hear differently from Jerry, I'll assume that Jerry is going to keep running the great trips on the Magician that I've been hearing about for a long time.

By the way, my comments were in no way intended to come out as "We want to go diving, why can't we find boats?" I'm not frustrated with the speed with which the answers are coming back to me. People are especially busy at this time of the year and I appreciate the responses that I've been getting. Everyone has been very nice.

This afternoon I got a phone call from Ted at Cal Boat Diving. We had a very nice conversation. He explained the issues of clout based on the amount of business shops do with boats to which you have referred. It all makes sense and I expected that this was the way things ran. After all, it makes sense. Business is business and I'm well aware of that. I'll be writing about our conversation as it relates to the Peace and the Spectre in another post.

Anyway, this process is all fairly new for us. I'm aware of the financial commitment that needs to be made to establish "clout" and we do not have any. This is why I've asked the boat owners about working with their "open boats". In this way, when we only have a few divers to fill a boat that they are actively filling on their own anyway, it's no big deal. We pay full price when there is a small turnout. If we can fill an open boat, then in some cases we can enjoy a discount that approaches 25% as is the case with what the Pacific Star is offering us. It's a win-win.

I'm sure that we'll learn more about all of this as we move forward. We'll see how it goes during the first year. When we get to October of 2006, we'll evaluate how things went for 2006 and discuss whether it makes sense to plan another year of boat diving for 2007. Personally, I think we'll have lots of fun in 2006 and that our monthly trips will increase in popularity. However, if as you predict, the novelty wears off and we don't have enough people participating to make it worthwhile, then we'll just stick to planning beach dives and leave the boat dive planning to the professionals.

Thank you for your input. It is always appreciated when someone who has been successfully serving our community for as long as you have offers us the benefit of sharing wisdom that only comes from years of experience in a sport that we all love.

Best regards.

Christian

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Somebody needs to update their website.
Looks like it is closed to me, in October, with no further updates. Hmmm:1poke:

Or . . . somebody needs to learn how to read a charter calendar.

You're absolutely right that it should be updated. In Jerry's defense, he has someone else do that for him and either they're lax or Jerry hasn't given them the 2006 info yet.

However . . .

When I see that same calendar, what I see is that on Sunday, October 30, the Magician had a closed charter, which means not only that the boat's booked, but also that you as Joe Diver can't call to get on the trip. It DOESN'T mean closed-for-business. This is also common nomenclature that I've seen used on many other boats calendars (Truth Aquatics, Horizon, Encore, Great Escape, to name a few).

 

[Ken Kurtis]

It was suggested I cross-post here what I posted as a new thread in case you missed the new thread.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just got off the phone with Jerry Lewis, the owner/captain of the Magician. He assured me that the boat is NOT for sale and he will be actively running charters through 2006. He's up in Seattle visiting relatives and returns to LA sometime on Wednesday, 12/20.

But the bottom line is: The Magician is not for sale.

 

[Taxgeek]

Ok, back on topic . . .

We're going to have some great trips. I hope we can get some trips on the Magician. I'll be on at least some of the trips, can't wait to get more details, and want to thank Christian for his effort in putting this together for us!