New Member

[John Jost]

Hello Tracker/Nitro Owners!

I am a 2nd generation recreational boater for 55 years. My father, a boat racer in the 50's-60's, worked for Kiekhaefer Mercury, then Evinrude Motors, giving me unlimited access to boats and boating. After college, I took a job as a tech writer with a product support company developing service training for OMC products and eventually created the marine business unit working with boat builders, propulsion and accessory manufacturers.

Fun fact, I was the original author of the first Tracker owner's manuals in the early 90's! I'm now semi-retired and creating owner's manuals for small semi-custom boat builders; blue water CC fishing machines in the 30' - 50' range.

Glad to meet you!

 

[NitroAdmin]

Welcome! That's impressive! What other manuals have you done? Good technical writers are hard to come by.

 

[Larry Williams]

Hello Tracker/Nitro Owners!

I am a 2nd generation recreational boater for 55 years. My father, a boat racer in the 50's-60's, worked for Kiekhaefer Mercury, then Evinrude Motors, giving me unlimited access to boats and boating. After college, I took a job as a tech writer with a product support company developing service training for OMC products and eventually created the marine business unit working with boat builders, propulsion and accessory manufacturers.

Fun fact, I was the original author of the first Tracker owner's manuals in the early 90's! I'm now semi-retired and creating owner's manuals for small semi-custom boat builders; blue water CC fishing machines in the 30' - 50' range.

Glad to meet you!

Interesting Bio- Welcome to the group!

 

[John Jost]

Welcome! That's impressive! What other manuals have you done? Good technical writers are hard to come by.

For boat builders it's in the 50s over the decades, with hundreds of OMs. Typically when on the water, I've done work for 8 of every 10 brands I see.

I love tech writing, especially if there's good Engineering info and proper funding. Unfortunately, boat builders for the most part are incredibly cheap, have poor engineering info, and view the OM as a necessary evil. Part of the problem is they use various OEM components of which they have no design control, and vendors change frequently due to price, so the OMs can't be specific and the OEM info is thrown in a bag along with the boat OM for the customer to figure out. Also, printing costs are high for short runs so most builders will Opt for a single manual for the entire line instead of a series or model specific OM, printed in B&W; not to mention OM maintenance costs for changes each model year that are usually overlooked.

These are the reasons that boat OMs are typically vague/generic and updated maybe every 5 years. Unfortunately, many of them were created by me (I'm not proud, as they are not 'good"). Nowadays I can afford to uphold minimum ABYC/NMMA standards to create OMs that I am proud of, and turn down cheap builders! Also, I love paper manuals but there are many benefits to both builders and users to go to digital OMs so I recommend it.

A good boat OM without builder design control should at least provide a general system(s) overview, and bridge the gap between the boat systems design and OEM component operation info e.g. What valves, switches or settings are needed to be made before going to OEM operation instructions? Where are components located? Customers new to boating need to know how things work, and experienced boaters need to understand the advancements in technology. And the list goes on...

Speaking of OMs, I need to get back to my Yellowfin project