5 Steps To Buying The Perfect Used Boat

As a small island nation, we’re never too far away from the sea. So it’s no surprise that a good number of us enjoy messing about on the water. If you’ve always fancied being captain of your own vessel and buying a boat or yacht, then read on for five steps to finding and buying the perfect used boat for you.

Answer Key Questions

As you’ve no doubt realised by now, boats are not cheap, even used ones, so always be sure to ask yourself key questions about the type of boat that’s best for you before rushing out to buy. If you’re reasonably experienced then you should have a good idea of what you want, but any prospective boat owner should at least consider these points first:

• Where you intend to use the boat
  
• How often you’ll be using it
  
• Who will be accompanying you on the boat
  
• What you intend to use it for (eg, cruising, day sailing, fishing)
  
• Your budget
  
  
  
  
  

Many boat owners who are dissatisfied with their boat have simply bought the wrong one. So don’t be one of them!

Finding a Suitable Boat

When buying a used boat, you have two main options. Buying privately from boat listings, or using a yacht broker. There’s nothing wrong with buying privately, but it can be a risky option if you don’t have much experience with boats. However, if you use a good ABYA (Association of Brokers and Yacht Agents) registered broker such as  http://www.ancasta.com/. They’ll not only find the perfect boat for you, but help you through the entire buying process. Brokers not only have a thorough knowledge of the market and current prices, but enough experience with boats to identify and find the right type of boat for you.

Take a Sea Trial

Once you or your broker have found a boat and you have made a conditional offer, you should always arrange a sea trial. Unfortunately, this can’t normally be done before making an offer, but viewing a boat in a marina can’t be compared to seeing and feeling the boat in action, so a sea trial is still a critical step in the buying process. During a sea trial with the owner, you should get a good idea of how it handles, how the engine performs, and any leaks or other potential problems. If desired, you can take a marine surveyor with you to help assess the boat for you.

Order a Marine Survey

Again, a marine survey is a critical part of the boat buying process to ensure your boat is safe and without any major flaws. Your broker can arrange one for you, or you appoint a marine surveyor yourself.

Finance

There are many types of marine finance on offer if you need to borrow to fund your purchase. However, be sure to factor in other essential costs such as mooring fees, wintering costs, insurance, and the deposit amount. Talk to your broker about finance options.

Featured images:

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• License: Image author owned 

By Harry Price
 
Harry Price is a writer, personal trainer and entrepreneur. He enjoys traveling, hiking and working out. 

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10 Good Reasons For Offering Your Yacht For Charter

Even if you’ve got sufficient funds to run a yacht or powerboat year round, letting a charter company lease it from you during times of infrequent use makes great sense. Here’s ten reasons why you might want to give chartering a some thought:

1. It Drastically Reduces Ownership Costs

It’s the most obvious reason, but probably the most compelling. Your insurance fees, loan interest and all those maintenance bills add up. Chartering could help recoup a big chunk of those costs, and when it’s time to sell up, the yacht’s service history will be impeccable.

2.  Spend More Time Sailing, Less Time Preparing

This one’s a major headache. If you own a boat and it spends more time next to the pontoon than being sailed, it’s going to take extra time getting it seaworthy. If your boat is being chartered frequently, it will be in constant readiness to be sailed, so you’ll be able to head out on a trip much faster.

3.  Regular Maintenance Checks And Servicing

Chartered yachts tend to be better looked after than privately owned ones. If you’ve got members of the public taking out the yacht, it needs to be in perfect mechanical order. Leasing your craft to a chartering company will take care of this problem.

4. Increased Safety

Are you absolutely positive that your boat is safe? Rust, faulty parts and expired fire extinguishers aren’t going to be a problem on a properly managed charter yacht where strict safety checks need to be adhered to each and every time the boat leaves port.

5.  You Can Make It Your Main Business

If you don’t like the idea of giving the boat to a company and only being able to sail it for a few months a year, then why not make it a full time business? A charter broker can provide you with a steady flow of customers and you can concentrate on making sure your boat is attractive and well appointed.

6.  Tax Breaks

You’ll have to look into this one, but if you’re spending a good deal of the time away from home, you’ll be eligible for tax breaks. If you’re actually living aboard the vessel, your outgoings will be negligible.

8. Live The Easy Life

If you’re living aboard your boat and chartering it to holiday makers in the Bahamas, you’ll be seeing the sights and getting a fantastic tan at the same time! You’ll also be earning money whilst you island hop.

9.  Resale Value

If you’ve set up a chartering business around your yacht, you’ll be able to sell it for a good deal more to someone looking to take on a lifestyle business instead of those simply looking for yachts for sale.

10. Satisfaction

Perhaps the biggest appeal to chartering out your yacht is the positive effect it can have on those that spend time on it. You’ll have the opportunity give someone the holiday of their dreams, and often, a lifelong love of sailing will begin from that single trip aboard your yacht.

Author Bio:

Harry Price is a successful writer and entrepreneur. He values personal fitness and commits to 2 marathons a year.

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Play Live Music In A Band!

There are numerous ways to ensure that your live performance will be a success. The most important thing to remember is that you need to get comfortable on stage. While playing music, all musicians should make sure they are comfortable. They need to be relaxed and enjoy themselves in order to make the performance a success. It does not matter if your concert is free of cost, if the audience senses discomfort and unease from the performers, they will not be entertained.

Get Comfortable On Stage:

The first thing you need to worry about is doing everything possible in order to make yourself comfortable. There are different things you can do to get comfortable. You can mark an imaginary circle defining your space. Just be yourself and avoid everything that makes you uncomfortable. The heat coming out of the spotlight is a major source of discomfort but make sure that the audience does not feel your discomfort.

Prepare And Rehearse Very Well:

When you are doing a live band performance you need to rehearse a lot. While rehearsal is important to prepare you, it is not going to be the same once you get on stage. You will need to mentally prepare yourself beforehand for this. Once you enter the stage it is like entering a new zone. You need to forget all about your rehearsals. Just relax and play. You will do great!

Ignore Your Mistakes On Stage And Move On:

When on stage you need to be confident. If you make a mistake don’t worry, the best way to cover it up is keep going on with the show. Hopefully the crowd will not notice. Another important tip to cover up a blunder is that if a wrong note is played then instead of stopping or correcting it, replay that note. This will make it seem like the pattern of the performance. The audience will not even notice the mistake.

Similarly, if the vocalist happens to forgets the lyrics he should reverse and go to the start of that line and start again. He might be able to remember it this time.

In case nothing works you don’t need to worry, you can laugh or smile and in this light mood admit to your audience you made a mistake. The audience will surely understand and laugh back and you can move on.

Play For The Sake Of Fun:

You shouldn’t play for the sake of money but for fun. Play for the love of music, the passion that runs in your blood. If you are looking for fame and money choose something else. Start up a business with a rich relative or friend or something similar. Join an investment bank. This may sound cheesy but date Paris Hilton if fifteen minutes of fame is all you want. Post videos on YouTube or any other money generating activity. If you don’t play for fun, don’t play at all. And especially don’t form a band and play for an audience!

Author Bio :The author Ben has a lot of experience in the music industry. He has written a lot of articles related to Blue Planet Entertainment which is a Band Hire Melbourne company.

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Putting the "WOW" in Any Party That You Host

Want to make sure your guests for your next party have a blast, but you're already out of ideas? If you desire to put the "WOW" in any party you host, but you feel uninspired right now, I can give you tips on how to take your party to the next level. Most of these tips are not really new, but too often, party hosts miss them because of their simplicity.

Let the Invitation Set the Mood

Ideally, the party should begin the moment your invited guests receive their invitation cards. The purpose of the invites is not just to inform someone that you're throwing a party and they're invited. Its real purpose is to actually set the mood. You will know a good invitation because the moment you open it, you instantly have a clear picture of what the party will be like even if you are not there yet. For instance, if you're going to throw a Victorian tea party, a good invitation would be a card that is shaped like a teapot. If it's a mystery-themed party, perhaps you can make the print on the card really small, and attach a small magnifying glass to the card.

Go for a Theme...Or Not

One advantage of having a theme for your party is that you can base every decision from it. Sometimes, though, having a generic party is also good, especially if it's not really a big occasion and you simply want to have fun with friends. The advantage of a non-themed party is that you really don't know what to expect. For instance, if you become bored, you can leave the venue and take the party with you somewhere else.

Colorful Isn't Always Good

Parties are usually celebrated with lots of colorful decorations. While there's nothing wrong with having a colorful party, you might want to make your party a little bit more unique by utilizing a monochromatic theme. Stick to a single color and base other details of the party from that one color. You can play with other variations of that color, but the idea is to stick to a single shade. This is no doubt the cheapest and easiest way to make your party look better. After all, simplicity is beauty.

Fun Means Everyone is Involved

One of the downsides of having a huge party is that you can't get everyone involved. At any party, there's always that one individual who would sit on the side and would not prefer to join the activities, if there are any. The essence of having a party is to have everyone celebrate, though, so to make your party fun, see to it that you get everyone involved. This is easy to achieve, especially if you have a theme. Even before the date, you can already give your guests some creative assignments such as making a short video greeting for the celebrant to be played at the party. When I say everyone, I mean everyone, and that includes the pets. Yes, you can get the pets involved, too, by tying decorative ribbons on their collars.

Perspective is Crucial

You don't have to be an interior designer to notice the difference between an empty room and a room with furniture strategically set in place. All you need is perspective, and when it comes to decorating a room for a party, this is very crucial. For instance, a big room filled with just a few balloons would look dull compared to a small room packed with a hundred balloons. Even if you utilize cheap party supplies, you can have a venue that's more visually impressive by putting this principle into practice.

About the Author: Richard Curtain used to work for a caterer and party planner in Melbourne. With his exposure to party preparations and scouting for supplies online and offline, he developed the knack for being a party thrower himself. He recommends that you look for high-quality party supplies at Partiesonline website.

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The Purge Movie Review

I've had the Purge downloaded for ages - but for the longest time I held off watching it. I'm a huge Lena Headey fan so found out about this movie through her. She is perfect in Game of Thrones. Cersei is my favourite character. But I've seen her in Dredd 2012 and it was a little odd, especially when she falls from the roof. I was worried she wouldn't be as great an actress as I am used to seeing in Game of Thrones.

James DeMonaco, perhaps best known for The Negotiator (1998) and Assault on Precinct 13 (2005), has released his latest cinematic offering in the form of The Purge, starring Ethan Hawke (Before Sunrise) and Lena Headey (300, Game of Thrones).

Watch the purge official trailer here.

Set in a closer-than-comfortable 2022 A.D. America, The Purge portrays a dystopian society in which crime is at an all-time low, unemployment is at only 1%, and everything’s essentially fine and dandy for the majority of Americans. So how has this peace-loving society come about? Once a year, between the hours of 7pm and 7am, all crime is legal.

The narrative explains to us that the government see this as a chance for ordinary, law-abiding citizens to relieve themselves of any tensions, usually in the form of rape and murder, leaving the rest of the year to be peaceful and crime-free.

James (Ethan Hawke) has profited pretty tidily from this set up by selling security equipment to those who can afford to protect themselves from this night of terror. His surrounding neighbours are all protected due to this technology, while James and his family are able to hide away in their family mansion throughout the night.

However, things take a turn for the worse when their teenage son allows entry to a blood-covered, screaming man running past the house. Soon after, the stranger’s pursuers arrive at the house and demand the family give up the man, or face a night of terror.

The film has a lot of potential to be both genuinely scary as well as genuinely innovative. Everyone can relate to the sense of terror that being stalked around your own house must bring; this is only enhanced by the terrific performances by those players the stalkers.

Perhaps most interestingly, the film highlights the very real and stark difference between the one per cent (our on-screen family), and those who live in poverty. The poor are unable to protect themselves during the purge, and so a huge amount of these people are killed during the night.

This is, no doubt, a critique of our times, which may be a common trope of dystopian fiction, but done originally and well within this film. Unfortunately, in order to boost the horror stakes, we spend more time within the family home rather than outside on the streets, witnessing the slaughter of the poor first hand.

It would have brought forward DeMonaco’s message far more clearly had this occurred, though this only reduces the societal message somewhat – if you’re looking for a horror film with a critical bite, you’re still going to be satisfied.

It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch, but it is certainly interesting, as well as properly scary.

Featured images:

•  License: Creative Commons image source 
•  License: Creative Commons image source 

Jules Halliwell is editor in chief at TheDailyAttack. She lives in Phoenix Arizona USA, probably spending her time loving Lena Headey in Game of Thrones and watching Breaking Bad.

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The Trend Of War Of DJs

Music is the food for the soul, and every year popular culture attracts a new genre. The current rage in music is party songs, R n B, electro fusion and the likes. These songs generally come with hardcore beats that are accompanied by lyrics or at times without them too. Now the people in demand for the current musical trend are the DJs, or Disc Jockeys. These people run the show at a party, with their music machine by their side, they scratch, sample and change an already recorded song to make it funkier and more fun to listen to. These DJs often have what they call a ‘war of DJs’, which is held to prove who the best of all is.

  

How does it happen?

This is usually a sort of a competition that is held by organisers interested in such an affair to promote the profession of DJ-ing. All aspiring disc jockeys meet at this common platform and have a battle or war wherein they play the same or different tracks to create their own music by scratching, sampling and much more. It usually has a crowd who grooves to the music and are the real judges who decide upon the winner. The crowd is asked to cheer when the name of a particular DJ is announced, and the one for whom the roar comes the most is declared the winner at the end of it. War of the Djs is an important event for aspiring DJs but with a hint of fun added with a great crowd and lot of drinks. Now because disc jockeying is a profession that is attached with partying or clubbing, it is important to understand who makes the crowd have the most fun.

Why a War?

With this sort of music becoming prevalent in most parts of the world, many people are aiming to become DJs, and therefore war of the DJs has become a platform for aspiring disc jockeys to shine. In a competitive world,where everything is decided on the basis of a person’s skill and knowledge, it is only right to have this war. It is music after all, and only when you have listened to more than one will you know about one. Therefore having a war with many aspirants of disc jockeying would help people decide who could be the best. The profession is thriving and there many institutes in fact which train and teach people to learn the art of disc jockeying.

The songs played during a war of DJs are generally remixed as per the preference of the youngsters and are recorded professionally. These remixed songs are can be downloaded from various music sites.

In a fast paced world, there are many new professions that have come to the forefront, and disc jockeying is fun and vibrant for the young world. The “war of DJ competition” is an easy and very efficient way to understand who could be the best.

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Changing State Of Women In Hip Hop

Coming to think of hip hop and the presence of women rappers, there is not much that can be talked about. There are not as many commercially successful female rappers who have got the public’s attention as male rappers. But, that does not completely out list women from this genre that is oh so popular amongst youngsters. One of female rappers, who has been referred to as the best female ever to kindle the genre, is LaurynHil of Fugees, though her long hiatus has led the fans to succumb to a hopeless void. As for today, it may be rightly assumed that Nicki Minaj is perhaps so popular that only she may be known to everybody as the only female, popular rap artist. Contrary to this assumption, there are a surprising number of women in the industry who could be called to rap for fellow artists.

Unfortunately, with there being women rappers alongside male rappers, the idea boils down to a flinching though: sex sells. To elaborate, let us take a look at how Minaj as a pop and sexualised artist has been raising the horns in the world of hip hop. Although, Minaj and the other female hip hop artists are independent and strong women, they are shaped predominantly by the men.

Women and Hip Hop Music

Women are greatly objectified in hip hop and this is evident from the music videos of various male artists

peculiar to the particular genre. The male artists have been seen to be discussing women in a misogynistic way. Keeping this aside, there is more that can be understood in a female rappers videos and the raps that they make. While there is definitely a place for female rappers to bloom in their own independent spaces and talk about their sex life just how a male rapper is allowed to, a lot of artists are trying to fit into the concept of a sexy female rapper. It appears like music labels are bent on capitalising the woman’s sexuality than willing to express her innate ability to rap.

Some overly sexual rappers include Iggy Azalea and Azealia Banks. Iggy Azalea is the first female and the first Australian to be featured in the XXL Freshmen class, who signed on the T.I.’s Hustyle label with the most famous song of hers being titled Pu$$y. Azealia Banks released her own version of a song by Baauer of Harlem Shake fame and put her full body on display.

While it is perfectly acceptable for Banks and Azalea to rap about their sexual contacts, it is upsetting to know that it is this that has brought fame to them. They are powerful artists who may easily claim to be one of the few artists who can rap in the industry, little is realised that it is their sexuality and the way major labels extract a profit on them that catches the fans’ attention.

Last Word

Interestingly, there are female rappers who are also known for their charm such as Kreayshawn who is known to be an interesting and in fact, the most interesting female rapper who is active as of today. What is appalling is that she puts through her tactics in such fashion that it is understood that her motives are to overcome the male dominated industry.

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Self Promotion Of Music: Necessary For An Aspirant Artist

Advertisement, marketing, and publicity are the three key factors on which the commercial future of an artist depends. No matter if you are a writer, a musician, a stage artist, an actor, singer and a lyricist; you need to promote yourself and your talent that attracts large audience. In this blog we are going to see various online and offline means of promoting music. 

With the invention of the Internet and computers, online music and artist promotion have gained importance, since it is the easiest means to promote the talent of an individual.  Millions are using the Internet regularly, hence you can actually understand the huge potential of the Internet to promote someone’s talent.  So, it is no surprise why music composer, singers, new music brands, and upcoming artist are using online marketing services to advertise their talent. 

Today, a number of singer, celebrities, musicians, actors are using many social networking sites to constantly interact with their fans and to advertise their upcoming albums or films. Today, with the technological advancement and the availability of many social networking websites over ipads and cell phones, people can be online 24*7. It helps these people to get instant feedback on their work from the target audience. No doubt, Internet is the biggest platform and there are several ways of marketing over there. On this note, take a look at the tips on how to endorse music online. 

Website Of Band And Artist: A website is the great means of music and artist promotion. If you are a performer, then your website reflects your identity over online. A website gives you an opportunity to upload as much as information about yourself; you can post pictures and write blogs in order to promote yourself in your own way. Aside from this, by using effective SEO (search engine optimization) technique you can easily make sure that your websites get the maximum visibility and traffic. However, creating a website is a bit pricey task that a struggling performer cannot afford. 

Social Networking Websites: If you cannot afford your website, then go to social networking websites. Create your artist profile with a fan page and give all the details related to you and your band. Social networking sites are free of cost and can be easily accessible; it almost takes a few minutes to create a fan page and profile. Social networking sites are the incredible way of meeting a huge number of people. Once, you develop the fan base then you can quickly spread your message to a large section of people. You can inform them about your new album launch, concerts, and many other activities.

Offline Means Of Promotion: If you are an aspiring artist then you can record your music or song and share it with a number of studios, media person, music directors and people in the music industry. If you are looking for television advertisement then you can tie up with many advertising agencies to promote your work. Moreover, go into the production house and show your work to the concerned person. All these things will help you to promote yourself easily.

So, here are a few ways by which you can promote your talent across the globe. 

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