Tents and Marquees

2010 September 2
by squadron

marquees-pavillion-3Event Tents, such as wedding tents are for when you want to make a spectacular outdoor scene. They are generally structures installed at a location for a period of time.

Why A Tent?
Commercial Tents are used as protection from the sun, rain or a gathering place. They can make a stunning and creative atmosphere for any event.

Tent Rentals
Tents can be rented or leased for a day, a weekend, weeks, months, etc. For one or two day events, the Tents are usually installed a few days before the event, depending on scheduling and weather, and remain until a few days after the event. Many rentals are quoted for the entire week, allowing for time to set up and design the interior and exterior. Some Tents are built for exceedingly long-term events and have been installed and remain installed for years.

What Kind of Tent Should I Rent?
Tent rental companies come in all sizes – from small-sized companies with just a few Tents to exceedingly large-sized companies – carrying dozens of several sizes and styles of Tents. Some general rental companies rent from tent rental companies to accommodate their client’s needs.

You may know you want to use a standard Tent for your event, or your event planner may already have in mind to use a Tent. You have options! There are lots of other spectacular
structures and Tent styles out there. Some are unique and make a statement of their own. Ask the rental company you’re working with for a list of the type styles they have on hand.

Usually, the different types of Tents available in most companies are (the names vary depending of the company):

Folding Tents Easy and fast to use and always in demand. Very popular, because usually is the less expensive tent. Fast, flexible, cost effective and long lasting.

They are used by:

  • Corporate brands across most industries
  • Government & Council buyers
  • SME business marketers
  • Franchisees
  • Agricultural exhibitors
  • Emergency services & community groups
  • Folding Tents create brand exposure opportunities.
  • You can reach your audience at the right time, in the right place with the right message.

Inflatable Tents An exciting and fun alternative Tent. Easy & fast to set up. Be sure they have removable printed roof because in that way you can share the investment with other licences.

What Size Tent Will I Need?

The size of Tent depends on a few factors:

1. The number of guests you expect
2. Layout or seating arrangements or the style of event:

* Reception with what type of tables?
* Speaker engagement with what type of seating?
* Will you need a dance floor?
* Will you need display areas for your products?

If you are interested in a Tent, you can expect to need about 2,000 – 2,500 square feet for 200-seated guests. That could mean a 40 x 60 size Tent (Always ask the Tent rental vendor directly and they’ll give you the best dataabout the size of Tent you’ll need).

Therefore, the key rule is; know what you are going to use your tent for. The choice of tents is incredible, almost on par with the choice of cars that you can buy.

So if you need a tent for the family BBQ, for example, your needs are fairly rudimentry
and your budget may be tight. Look for cheap tents that offers a waterproof Polyester roof and a decent warranty for under $600.

If you need a tent for a school or sports club you will need a diverse range of sizes, and colours. Most plain colour Tents s range between $995- $2900. If you are keen to advertise yourself, you can have your names printed for around $150-$300. Printing logos usually cost a little more.

In the last 5 years, portable Tents have become important to businesses for their marketing. The key need for these buyers is a prominent and exact reproduction of their logo. Sign written or printed Tents can be as dull as a website address or they can be a design masterpiece.

Remember, if it is for commercial purposes, the aim is to build recognition of your company with your printed Tent. Printed corporate Tents range in price from $1500- $4000. Good ones will really catch your eye.

Once you have decided on what sort of buyer you are and how you are going to use your Tents, a good Tents company will offer you a choice of frames, a warranty of between 3-5 years and help with formulating the printing-if you need it.

For more information about tents, contact Extreme Marquees. We have a range of cheap tents, for all sorts of home and business applications.

New Zealand’s Top Holiday Cities

2010 August 23

New Zealand has a majestic array of astounding landscapes. Like enormous mountain ranges, sweeping coastlines, breathtaking rainforests, deep fiords, snow capped mountains and steaming volcanoes. These picturesque wonders have all made New Zealand an attractive destination for all kinds of holidays.

Amazing travel packages and holiday specials are available on quality accommodation in modern city hotels and luxurious wilderness lodges at slashed prices. Among the top holiday destinations in New Zealand, Queenstown, Christchurch and Auckland would definitely be there. Travel Online is a prominent online specialist travel operator and provides wonderful tourist services for New Zealand. Travel Online provides an instant quote and booking service for accommodation in cities right across the country.

Queenstown
The international resort town of Queenstown is situated on the shoreline of Wakatipu Lake. This beautiful region is among the most scenic locations on the globe. Throughout the year adventurous and stimulating sports like jet boating, bungy jumping, and white water rafting take place. This town is the epicentre of the entire world’s bungy jumping activities too. With the advent of winter, the town gets transformed to an alpine wonderland with snowboarders and skiers from all corners of the world assembling at the annual Winter Festival.

There is constant request for Queenstown Accommodation all round the year and Travel Online offers a select group of hotels best suited for New Zealand holidays. 1, 2, 3 or 4 bedroom apartments, with modern facilities, gyms, spas and fantastic views are available at various holiday retreats across the city. Bigger apartments with more bedrooms, tennis courts, private jetties and fitness centres are also available at a higher price. Luxury complexes with studio rooms in the vicinity of cafes, bars, and restaurants are also found in Travel Online’ Queenstown Accommodation selection.

Christchurch
When choosing a place to stay in Christchurch look for hotels that give views over the attractive Victoria Square, across the transfixing Avon River or towards the epochal Anglican Cathedral. Situated on New Zealand’s South Island, this cosmopolitan city is always abuzz with great festivals, shopping spots, theaters and art galleries. Hotels overlooking Victoria Square provide visitors with an insight in to the city’s English history.

Individuals accommodated in the vicinity of the Christchurch Cathedral will find hotel rooms with a Manhattan-style feel. Tradition and elegance are everywhere in these hotels along with a keen eye on service excellence. Spacious bedrooms with full-fledged kitchen facilities are common, along with hi-tech conference facilities, resort-like leisure features like spas, saunas, gyms, and swimming pools. Many of these hotels provided by Travel Online are located in the vicinity of the Technology Park, the International Antarctic Centre, and the airport. Travelers who want to stay away from the hustle and bustle of the cosmopolitan life will find suitable accommodation in the brilliantcountryside surrounding the city.

Auckland
Auckland, also known as the City of Sails, is situated in between 2 harbors and has more boats per person than anywhere on the planet. Within minutes a person has the choice of sailing away on yachts to isolated nearby islands, living the high life in the casino, surfing at lots of beaches or tasting the exotic wines at local vineyards. Hotels come in stylish and comfortable studios, and spacious executive / marina suites. Travel Online caters to the tastes of corporate and business tourists and can beat any price seen on Auckland accommodation advertised. Auckland harbor is breathtaking, and is seen perfectly from atop Sky City and the surrounding accommodation.

Affordable and comfortable apartments are available for casual tourists, equipped with kitchens, laundries, and balconies to provide a fantastic holidaying experience. Visitors to Auckland love visiting the Antarctic Encounter, which showcases the only penguins present in the sub-Antarctic region. More adventures include cage-bereft shark dives, scuba expeditions and snorkel safaris. New Zealand is waiting.

Travel Online has a wide range of Queenstown accommodation close to all the snow action and cosmopolitan Christchurch accommodation surrounded by all that theatre and art. For holidays in and around the water, Auckland accommodation is as good as anywhere in the world.

Repairing Flooded Carpet: A cheap job is a good job right? Wrong….

2010 August 18
by squadron

Don’t have an amateur 24 hour carpet cleaner try to repair your carpets with water damage. These are the worries you need to be watchful of:

Overcharging. An amateur water restoration technician may build the job up with superfluous extras. E.g. using dehumidification to dry the flooded carpets unnecessarily.

Using the correct equipment. They may use equipment from hire places for the carpet. This is acceptable, but an experienced water damage professional will have all their equipment to provide a speedy response and hopefully a better value job.

Moisture metre. If they don’t have the right moisture meter, they can’t know if the carpet is repaired. This furthers the risk of future mould growth. Removal of the mould may be required.

They are not Specialised. There are a whole lot of “Carpet Cleaners” in this industry who do water damage restoration jobs on the “side.” i.e. they aren’t those who complete this kind of task everyday. Be aware of that. Repairing carpets is an art. Taking carpet off the gripper strips then reinstalling them is best to be taken on by a professional, otherwise they can be damaged beyond repair.

You might be thinking, how do I pick a credible Flood Restoration Business? Below I have set out some things to check for when you hunt around for a carpet flood damage business:

How big is their Yellow Pages ad: This can be an indication as to how much business they are getting already. A full-size Yellow Pages ad slot can cost upwards of $50 000. When they have paid for a bigger ad, you can at least have some assurance that they are professionals.

Where do they show in Google? The higher the rate in Google, the more webpage views there has been for this business.

What Qualifications do they have? The minimum qualification needed is a IICRC qualification in Applied Structural Drying and Water Damage Restoration.

Do Insurance companies hire them for water damage jobs? This is a better indicator. If insurance companies source them, the business is likely to be good at their skill. Insurance companies will tend to use the companies that offer them the better value for money.

What Equipment do they have? They should own at least 100 Air movers. If they own this many, this probably means they have been up and running for some time. It took our business 8 years to accumulate that many wet carpet drying air movers.

What level of commitment can you get from them over the phone? Ask if you can pin them down to a set price for water extraction, water removal and initial inspection. If they won’t give you a rate for just this, you know they are not willing to serve you, so move on.

Response Time – Our Water Damage business based in Brisbane operates to a 59 minute response time for a water damage emergency. The job needs to be completed ASAP. Mould can appear inside a 24 hour period.

If you stick to these tips you are sure to choose a Flood Damage Restoration technician who can do the job right.

If you have carpet water damage Brisbane, call us for flooded wet carpet drying. Brisbane storm season is approaching and you may need storm damage carpet cleaning. Brisbane and surrounding areas serviced.

Podiatry as a Career in Australia

2010 August 13

As a practicing podiatrist in Brisbane, Australia, I am regularly asked by parents if podiatry would be a good career for a school leaver to enter. There are many things to recommend a career in podiatry including:

  • You can be self employed: This is a prospect that is increasingly being denied to other health care providers such as optometrists and even GPs . Big Business controls a lot of health practices. Consider how often you see an independent optometrist these days – can they compete on price with the multinational chains?
  • Legal Issues: In Australia (unlike the USA where things are very different), podiatrists very, very rarely face malpractice suits. The nature of podiatry practice does not lend itself to accidentally harming one’s patients. Also, you never have to give your patients the bad news that their condition will be terminal.
  • Working Hours: Emergency call outs are very unlikely. This is welcome news for those among us who like their sleep uninterrupted.
  • Financial Reward: Whilst it is true that podiatry doesn’t pay as well as being a dentist or medical practitioner, the pay is generally commensurate with other allied health providers.
  • Instant Gratification: One of the most rewarding facets of being a podiatrist is the instant gratification! People come in with pain and leave happy. You will consult on a plethora of bite-sized jobs each day, many with a cure you can provide immediately. From someone that has worked with unanimously grumpy customers in a past career, believe me when I tell you, it makes the day much more rewarding when people leave you smiling.
  • Philanthropy: Podiatry will give you a great deal of opportunity to help eliminate the suffering of your fellow human beings.
  • Self – Determination: Podiatry provides a clinician the power to determine their own course of action for the benefit of their patients. This is unlike a career in nursing for example where one acts under the direction of a doctor.
  • Clear Job roles: The only people who can work as a podiatrist are those with a podiatry qualification. The clear roles that this demarcates relieves the need to find your ‘niche’ after university – as someone with a more generic Bachelor of Science degree might need to do.
  • Like to travel? There are many places around the world that do not make their own podiatrists including Tasmania, the Northern Territory, all of Asia and all of the Middle East. If you want to work your way around the world, Australian podiatrists can work in any Commonwealth country and are especially in demand in Singapore, Egypt, United Arab Emirates and other far flung fields.
  • Variety: In any given day, a podiatrist will see a huge range of complaints. There may be an ingrown toenail or two, a painful corn, a sports injury, some sacroiliac pain and at least a couple of painful plantar fascias. The primary skill required in being a good podiatrist is to be a great problem solver. Every patient is an individual with a unique complaint requiring a well considered solution.

How do you become a qualified as a podiatrist ?

To qualify as a podiatrist necessitates) a four year Bachelor of Health Science degree course {available at six Australian Universities:

  • Curtin University
  • La Trobe University
  • Charles Sturt University
  • Queensland University of Technology
  • University of South Australia
  • University of Western Sydney.

Last year, the entry score for the QUT was OP 8.

Stephanie Cosgrove graduated as a podiatrist from QUT in 1990 and with a Master’s degree in Applied Science (Podiatry) in 1996. Since 1991, she has worked in private practice as a Podiatrist Brisbane. She received three university prizes during her studies, including the award for excellence in design and manufacture of orthotics. Brisbane has been the site of her private practice since 1991 which has grown to four locations and eleven staff. If you want to Walk Without Pain consider a visit to Brisbane’s most innovative podiatry practice today. Call for an appointment now on 1300 A1 Feet.

Eight Steps to Great Web Design

2010 August 7
by squadron

Take charge of getting your site actualized by a developer and comprehend the process it will save you money and attain you a site that actually works the intended purpose!

1. Knowing your business and how you are currently established in your market.
In order to author a site that truly meets your requirements; you first need to have a full comprehension of your business including your products, and/or services and more importantly their market position. You then have to examine how you want to explain your business and what it offers in 7 seconds or less. Sounds impossible? Well that is the average time that a user will consider the point “is this site I searched for?”.

2. Budget and estimation
Have a budget in mind and don’t be afraid to let the developers know what it is. In saying this: BE REALISTIC, $500 will never see a great web site created, nor will they be anything left in the bank to market it.

3. The creative process
Be furnished with example sites and more importantly the elements of the site you like so they can acquire an understanding of what you would like to see on your site and also what you find frustrating about other sites. This will build a good profile and realise not only what type of site to construct for you but your tolerance to colours, animations, layouts etc. for your requirements which will allow for fast development. The more interaction and information you give them in the beginning the more time you will save everybody in the long run by getting what you want 1st time round. Check with the designers on how many rounds of changes come with the contract, most will allow for a total conceptual redesign only once and 2 rounds of changes after that.

4. Production and Content
After the home page design is created, the developers will more than likely collect the general layout of this concept and then create the inner page template. It is this template that will be repeated for most of your pages for your site.
Present your content in a pre-proofed word processed document; don’t become too creative with the document fonts etc. as these will not be kept when the content is copied into the code of the site. It is inferred that you do use bolding, underlining, headings and sub heading though ,as these highlights are transferred into the site and are very important later on in not only getting the point across to the reader but for Search Engine Optimisation.
One last tip for content; formulate a decent amount of content but provide it in a way that a reader may attain a summary of what you are trying to present across in the 1st couple of paragraphs and an image or to. The rest of the paragraphs that get into finer details ARE FOR GOOGLE !

5. Development Programming and CMS
If your website contains Content Managed Areas (CMS) or has any other dynamic sections the developers will wrap your design around a content management program such as Joomla or Drupal or they may have a custom built system. Make sure that you get to see how the CMS system works on another site they have developed or an example site they may have. it is essential that you know that you can utilize and comprehend the system when your site is complete.

6. Testing and training
We work closely with the developers to test your site especially if there are any CMS or special programs that have been made for you. You can guarantee if it is has just been written for you then it will not operate 100% first time round. This is a where things can get ugly in the process you must understand the way the program works and test it as if you were normal website user. If it doesn’t make sense to you, chances are it won’t make sense to your audience. Make sure you test your website on more than just your browser, try to test it on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari. All of these browsers are avialable on the internet for free!

7. Launch – going live
When the developers are ready to make your site live make sure you have finished the above testing step until you are pleased that this website is the best representation of your business / product it can be. Remember even though you can change things after going live it is still a poor reflection on your business if there are spelling mistakes or broken images when you launch.

8. Marketing
There is little point in having a website if nobody visits it, make sure as part of you contract you have discussed search engine optimisation and or search engine marketing as part of your website build. This is the absolute most important factor of the whole process. If you are the only one looking at your site then you are in trouble.

Remember Search Engine Optimisation is about 30% Onsite (getting your site correct for Search Engine to index correctly) and 70% Promotion. Any developer who tells you otherwise hasn’t been in the industry too long.

For more information about web design Brisbane, contact Web Site Blue. Our web designers understand marketing as well as design.

Tips to Creating a New Business Logo

2010 August 6

A logo is a central step to creating a business. It is the face of your business. And like your face represents the tone of your business, indicates the service and screams the professionalism or lack there of.

People spend a lot of money on the formation of their logo and walk away with no artwork files. Then a couple months down the track when they require to put signage on their new building they cannot track the design studio down that formulated the original logo for them and so incur costs to have it recreated. This is unnecessary and may cause difficulties when trying to replecate the logo exactly as done originally.

We have created some basic tips you for to think about when creating a logo. Hopefully these will help you from experiencing any future difficulties.

Tip 1
First things first – you need to decide if you would like your logo to have an accompanying icon. It is desired that if your service or product name is not in your business name then perhaps an icon will help in getting a clear message across to your target audience.

An icon can add an extra element to your branding in that you could use the icon on its own on collateral where perhaps you are searching for a more illustrative finish without losing recognition.

A excellent example of this is the well-known and executed Nike logo.

Tip 2
Colour can be an extremely important decision as it not only could alter the output costs but can also margin your output use. Consider the end result and what you will be putting your branding onto in the future. Make sure your designer is aware of this as they should design accordingly.

Tip 3
Ensure you get a back up disk of your logo as a master file and confirm that it includes all the files required for the different printing formats.

Creative software updates frequently and some programmes become obsolete. Ensure you have a copy of your logo as a PDF – with the text converted to curves.

Tip 4
Using images in your logo is not very easy to arrange. For example it is hard to to reverse into black and white. Images also have limitations when it comes to size – they can only be reproduced to a certain size before they start pixilation.

Tip 5
Using gradients in your logo is not recommended. This too can have limitations when it comes to output for ie: gradients are hard to reproduce when embroidering fabrics.

Tip 6
Assure sure the font is legible. Some logos need to be reproduced on small pieces of collateral ie: post stamps. It is important that in this case the text is
readable

Tip 7
Assure that you collect a copy of your logo in CMYK high resolution 300 dpi (for printing use) and RGB 72 dpi(for web use).

Tip 8
It is important to have a style guide of your logo. It will clearly show you how to use your logo so it looks exactly the same every time it is reproduced. This allows you to keep your corporate image consistent.

Tip 9
Make sure that you get a letter from the design studio declaring that you own the copyright to your logo.

If you follow these tips then not only will you get a well-designed logo but you will also own the artwork. And when it comes to reproducing your collateral you will be doing it the most cost effective way.

For logo design Brisbane and web design Brisbane, contact graphic design Brisbane today for a free two hour consultation.

How to Create a Style Guide

2010 July 31
by squadron

How many times have you commissioned business cards to print and picked up yet another version of your corporate colour? Ever been fired up to see your advert in the latest newspaper and then caught that the crucial tag line is nowhere to be found or your logo has been ruined.

There is only one way to avoid this from happening and that is to use a style guide. Not only will a style guide assist you oversee the reproduction of your logo – it will also help you bolster your brand recognition – which many argue is one of the strongest selling tools.

We have placed the below steps together for you as a starting point.

Step 1 : Outline the audience for your Style Guide. Is this for staff to utilize in-house or is this for suppliers and contractors to refer to?

Step 2 : Mark what your output uses are. This is important because you will need different logos and file formats for example, black and white publication adverts in comparison to vehicle graphics.

Step 3 : Define the tone for the copy and content required. For example you may needcopy rules for printed content and then copy rules for website content.

Content rules cover all punctuation rules and how to attribute to the business and team.

Step 4 : Make sure you layout all the design templates so it is clear how and where the logo and branding sits on all the different pieces of collateral that may be reproduced.

Step 5 : Ensure to take into account any contributing logos or logos of business that are associated with you. It’s also important that you mail a copy of the layout to these companies to guarantee they agree with the layout of their logo as they too may have their own Style Guide and hierarchy layout rules.

Step 6 : Make sure that grammar, spelling and contact details are correct.

Step 7 : Ensure that when suppliers are using the Style Guide they understand~know~discern~apprehend} that a proof needs to be dispatched~sent~mailed~commissioned}to you to be affirmed as correct.

Make your Style Guide completed and as tight as possible. Then have it saved in an email friendly file format and have a couple printed. Once this is done we strongly suggest a training session – whereby your design studio comes in and trains your staff on how to work the Style Guide and most importantly your brand.

For graphic design Brisbane, logo design Brisbane and web design Brisbane, contact Bydaughters today. We help your brand build business.

Projectors: LCD Verses DLP (The downfall of DLP technology)

2010 July 19

The typical question heard when purchasing a new projector for the home, office, or classroom is: will I get an LCD projector or a DLP projector? LCD, which stands for ‘liquid crystal device’ and DLP, short for ‘digital light processing’ are the two most common projector imaging technologies. With so many company brands and types available, it can be overwhelming for consumers to decide between these technologies. It comes down to the fact that LCD projectors have far better image quality and colour accuracy. The article below tells you why DLP projectors struggle with reproducing a comparable standard of image quality.

It’s like a set of blinds in your home on your bedroom window. With the twist of a rod you can make the shutters open or closed, according to whether you want to let light in or not. And that is exactly how an LCD projector operates. Each pixel operates like a single shutter on a set of blinds to either pass light through or to block it. DLP on the other hand is made up of millions of microscopic mirrors or ‘pixel elements’ as the pros like to call them. Each pixel element operates to either reflect light or block it.

How the light source is processed from the point when the projector is switched on to when the image reaches your screen is ultimately important with regard to image quality, brightness and colour accuracy. LCD projectors project white light from the lamp by separating it into red, blue and green components, by three mirrors which direct the coloured light to 3 stand alone LCD panels. The 3 LCD panels cast the elements of the image by shining each pixel on and off. The pixels are then simultaneously processed in a glass prism to create the projector image. An important point to know about LCD projectors is that all three colours are sent onto your screen all at once. The way a DLP projector functions is widely different and even the way an image looks is not the same. With DLP, white light from the lamp is sent through a spinning colour wheel with transparent red, blue and green segments, at speeds up to 11,000 rpm/s. This way of making an image forms a sequence of red, blue and green light. The millions of micro mirrors as described above reflect the coloured light on the pixels to construct the image elements. The elements of the image are cast in sequence on the screen, one colour at a time. The viewer’s eyes will then draw each coloured element of the image into a single complete image. With LCD projectors, all colours are available all the time to create the highest brightness and superb colour accuracy. In DLP, only one colour is available at a time, causing lower colour brightness and accuracy. Some DLP designers have added a white segment into the colour wheel to improve all over brightness, but this also lessens colour accuracy.

I hear in forums all the time that DLP offers a higher contrast ratio and therefore must be better. For those unaware, the contrast ratio is a measure of a display system defined as the ratio of the luminance of the brightest white to that of the darkest black that the machine is capable of producing. DLP projectors do provide high contrast specifications in comparison to a majority of LCD projectors. At first glance, this appears to be a plus, however, in real life, the true black level is determined by the ambient light in the room in which the projector is used. Do not be hoodwinked by contrast specifications on websites and in brochures.

When the content you are trying to see includes moving images, DLP projection technology also has image imperfections, or ‘artifacts’. The most often seen artifact that a DLP projector forms with moving images is colour break up. Colour break up is unavoidable in DLP systems because moving images change position between the time red, blue and green colours are displayed. LCD projectors do not have this characteristic because all colours are projected with the others. DLP manufacturers have developed 3DLP solutions using 3 chips to solve the colour break up error, but the expense of these projectors make them hardly practical for many businesses and consumers.

Another point of difference between LCD and DLP is how they make up for the refractive qualities of light. Jump back to high school science, and remember when they taught you how the various colours of light refract different amounts when shone through the same lens. The problem with DLP projectors is that they use the one same panel for the same lens to project Red, Blue and Green. All 3 colours are not the same and refract light differently. Often with a DLP projector, a superfluous yellow colour will show above and a spill of blue will come through below something as simple as a single black line. During manufacturing LCD projectors can be fixed to take away these effects on the projected image, because each colour is directed on a separate LCD panels.

The one true buy point (excluding price) with deciding on a DLP projector is its overall smaller size and weight. However, this is only relevant to mobility and cannot be traded off against the image advantages of LCD projectors. If overall picture quality is vital to you, then the answer is simple. Go with an LCD projector! LCD projectors will constantly make bright, colourful images with fewer image mistakes. If you wish to learn more about LCD technology in more detail, have a gander at this fabulous resource website: Explore 3LCD. If you have any additional questions, get onto Projector Central and send me an email.

Jonathan King is the sales and marketing manager at Projector Central, Australia’s number one online provider for projectors. Brisbane-based, Projector Central has serviced Australia for 15 years. For data projectors in the Gold Coast and Interactive Whiteboards, contact Projector Central today.

Yachting and Yacht Clubs

2010 July 16

As the Dutch found dominance in sea power during the 17th century, the initial yacht was a leisure craft used initially by royalty and then by the burghers for the canals and then in the protected and unprotected waters of the Low Countries. Yacht racing was incidental, coming out of private matches. English yachting started with King Charles II of England during his exile in the Low Countries. On his restoration to the English royalty in 1660, the city of Amsterdam presented him with a 20-metre (66-foot) pleasure boat with a beam (maximum width) of 5.6 m (18 feet), which he called Mary. Charles and his brother James, the duke of York (James II, sovereign 1685–88), made additional yachts and in 1662 raced two of them from the Thames, from Greenwich, to Gravesend, and back, on a £100 wager. Yachting was found to be classy with the wealthy and nobility, but after that time the habit did not last.

The first yacht association in the British Isles, the Water Club, was formed at about 1720 at Cork, Ire., as a cruising and unofficial coast guard association, with great naval panoply and gravity. The closest thing to a race was the “chase,” when the “fleet” pursued an imaginary enemy. The club went on, largely as a social club, until 1765, and in 1828, by joining with other organisations, it became the Cork Yacht Club (later the Royal Cork Yacht Club).

Yacht racing began in some ordered manner on the Thames in the mid-18th century. The duke of Cumberland founded the Cumberland Fleet for Thames racing in 1775. When George IV rose to monarchy in 1820, it was then called the Fleet to His Majesty’s Coronation Sailing Society. The Thames Yacht Club seceded after a racing fight, to become the Royal Thames Yacht Club in 1830. The first English yacht group had been formed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight in 1815, and royal funding made the Solent – the strait between the mainland and the Isle of Wight – the perpetual setting of British yachting. The association at Cowes became the Royal Yachting Club, again at the rise of George IV. Each member was required to have boats of at least 20 tons (20,321 kg). Sailing matches for large bids were held, and the club life was superlative. It came to be that the Royal Yachting Club boats grew in size to more than 350 tons.

In North America, yachting started with the Dutch in New York in the 17th century and continued when the English took control. Sailing was mostly for fun and rose to its apogee in George Crowinshield’s Cleopatra’s Barge (1815), which traveled on the Mediterranean Sea and created a minimum of luxury and sophistication for the later yachts in those waters from the late 19th century. The first persisting American yacht organisation, the Detroit Boat Club, was formed in 1839. In 1844, John C. Stevens began the New York Yacht Club while on board his schooner Gimcrack.

Kinds of sailboats
The first sailing yachts were within the style of such naval craft as brigantines, schooners, and cutters from the 17th century through the latter half of the 19th century. The craft of bigger yachts was first largely impacted by the success of America, which was created by George Steers for a club headed by John C. Stevens, and it was the boat for which the America’s Cup (q.v.) found its namesake after its victory at Cowes in 1851. Earlier yachts were not designed and crafted in today’s sense, with only a model for an outline. Not until the later half of the 19th century did what was labeled naval architecture come into action. Not until the 1920s did the use of the science of aerodynamics do for the craft of sails and rigging what science had already done for hulls.

Because most of all sailboats were individually built, there was a desire for handicapping boats previous to the one-design class boats were designed. Hence, a rating rule was decreed, which resulted in the International Rule, adopted in 1906 and revised in 1919. In modern times, one of the rapidly growing areas in the sailing industry is that of one-design class boats. All boats in a one-design class are manufactured to standard specifications in length, beam, sail area, and other elements (for an example of a two-person sailboat, see illustration). Racing between those boats can be had on an even keel with no handicapping required. A great example is the standard International America’s Cup Class adopted for participants in the 1992 America’s Cup race.

So long as yachting was done largely for the aristocracy and the wealthy, money was no problem, and the size of boats grew, in both length and weight. The rise and desire of smaller craft came in the second half of the 19th century from the sailing of the Englishmen R.T. McMullen, a stockbroker, and E.F. Knight, a barrister and journalist. A voyage around the world (1895–98) led single-handedly by the naturalized American captain Joshua Slocum in the 11.3-metre Spray proved the hardiness of less sizeable yachts. Later in the 20th century, notably after World War II, smaller racing and pleasure craft became commonplace, down to the dinghy, a preferred training boat, of 3.7 m. In the late 20th century, yachts of less than 3 m were traveled in single-handedly across the Atlantic Ocean.

Kinds of power yachts
Post the decade 1840–50, during which steam began to take the place of sail power in public vessels, the steam engine, and later the internal-combustion engine, were employed more and more in leisure boats. Bigger power yachts were furthered to a high degree, and long-distance cruising became a favoured occupation of the wealthy. The first power yachts were paddle-wheel boats; those then gave way to those powered by the completely submerged screw or propeller kind of propulsion. Like naval and merchant vessels, auxiliaries with both sail and power were the yacht standard for several years. By the second half of the 20th century, a lot of yachts were still auxiliaries, but the large part were solely power yachts containing gasoline or diesel engines.

In the last decade of the 19th century there was a boom in the construction of large steam yachts. Conspicuous of these was the Mayflower (1897) of 2,690 tons, that had triple-expansion engines, twin screws, and a compartmented iron hull, and was sailed by a crew of at least 150. The Mayflower, commissioned by the United States Navy in 1898, was the official yacht of the president of the United States until 1929 and gave active service in World War II.

As more sizeable and better quality internal-combustion engines were produced, many large craft started using them for power. The creation of the diesel engine, using heavy oil for fuel, was furthered for World War I. During the decade following, large power-yacht building blossomed, climaxing in the Orion (1930) at 3,097 tons. From that time the largest auxiliary yacht constructed was the four-masted, steel, barque-rigged Sea Cloud (1931) of 2,323 tons.

The building of large power yachts lessened after 1932, and the trend after that was for smaller, less costly boats. From World War II, many small naval vessels were sold to private owners for conversion to yachts. In the late 20th century, yachting is a globally popular competition enjoyed by thousands of yachtsmen who are actually owning and keeping their own small recreational boats. The number of boats and owners is increasing steadily, not only in the traditional places along the seacoasts but also on inland waterways and lakes.

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Proportional, Progressive, and Regressive taxes

2010 July 8

Taxes can be distinguished by the impact they have on the allocation of income and wealth. A proportional tax is a tax that impinges the same relative liability on all taxpayers—i.e., in the case where tax liability and income move in the same proportion. A progressive tax is characterizable by a larger than proportional increase in the tax onus relative to the rise in income, and a regressive tax is characterized by a less than proportional increase in the related burden. So, progressive taxes are thought of as removing the lack of equality in income distribution, but regressive taxes might have the result of an increase in these inequalities.

The taxes that are generally believed to be progressive include individual income taxes and estate taxes. Income taxes that are declarably progressive, however, might become less so within the upper-income categories—especially if a taxpayer is allowed to reduce his tax base by declaring deductions or by leaving out some certain income elements from his taxable income. Proportional tax rates if applied to lower-income categories could also be more progressive if personal exemptions are claimed.

Income measured over the period of a year may not necessarily offer the best measure of taxpaying requirement. For example, transitory increases in income may be saved, and in temporary declines in income a taxpayer could choose to pay for consumption by taking from savings. Thus, if taxation is compared alongside “permanent income,” it will be less regressive (or more progressive) than when made comparable with annual income.

Sales taxes and excises (save luxuries) are mostly regressive, because the dissemination of individual income consumed or spent for a specific good lessens as the level of personal income grows. Poll taxes (also called head taxes), nominated as a flat amount per capita, patently are regressive.

It is difficult to determine corporate income taxes and taxes on business as progressive, regressive, or proportionate, principally due to uncertainty surrounding the ability of businesses to shift their tax expenses (see below Shifting and incidence). This difficulty of dictating who bears the tax burden rests essentially on whether a national or a subnational (that is, provincial or state) tax is being determined.

In assessing the economic effect of taxation, it is essential to differentiate between various ideas of tax rates. The statutory rates will include those specified in legislature; generally speaking these are marginal rates, but occasionally they are mean rates. Marginal income tax rates signify the fraction of incremental income that is taken by taxation when income is increased by one dollar. Therefore, if tax liability increases by 45 cents when income rises by one dollar, the marginal tax rate is 45 percent. Income tax statutes often contain graduated marginal rates—i.e., rates that rise as income increases. Heavy analysis of marginal tax rates are required to regard provisions in addition to the formal statutory rate structure. If, for example, a particular tax credit (reduction in tax) reduces by 20 cents for each one-dollar rise in income, the marginal rate is 20 percentage points higher than nominated by the statutory rates. Since marginal rates specify how after-tax income changes in response to changes in before-tax income, they are the necessary ones for assessing incentive effects of taxation. It is even more complicated to nominate the marginal effective tax rate applicable to income from business and capital, since it may be reliant on considerations including the structure of depreciation allowances, the deductibility of interest, and the provisions for inflation adjustment. A basic economic theorem grants that the marginal effective tax rate in income from capital is nothing under a consumption-based tax.

Average income tax rates determine the part of total income that is demanded in taxation. The pattern of average rates is the one that is important for considering the distributional equity of taxation. Under a progressive income tax the average income tax rate grows with income. Average income tax rates commonly rise with income, both because personal allowances are permitted for the taxpayer and dependents and also due to that marginal tax rates are graduated; on the other hand, preferential treatment of income received fundamentally by high-income households can dampen these effects, allowing regressivity, as indicated by average tax rates that decrease as income increases.

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