Happened across your blog. I was stunned by the tragic news of John’s death. He was a great bloke. I have fond memories of some of our daft adventures. My condolences to his family.

Being from the Foreign Exchange industry in India, I must admit that RabbitFX has taken the extra step to unravel the Money Changing Mystery to customers, in a nutshell..Simplifying FX.

Great Work!!!

cheers, Rainwater

This has been built by a friend Tom Virden over the past three years. Very smart integration of front end and back end CRM, financials etc. Tom was one of the originals in lastminute.com and has Brent Hoberman and Nick Pearch (former CEO of Dyson) on the advisory board. One firm to look out for !

Having said that, it is still surprising that here in the US, boatyards (and marinas!) with prime waterfront real estate are not able to renew their leases with local port authorities but instead are having their lands changed into tourist or other “retail” use. A problem for this market…

I am fascinated by the fact that the market for fix-up/restore classic yachts hasn’t really picked up much at all with this new wealth “trying” to go into yachting and considering there is both a lack of ability to build one’s “new” impressive yacht in quick fashion (the yards are booked!) and simultaneously the classic (i.e. wood) boat builders/restoration firms are going under or taking on piecework for the mega yachts but not actually “growing” at all. If one looks at vintage cars, planes, or even estates, we find “restore” as a whole other dimension to flaunting one’s wealth.

Yet, this doesn’t seem to be the case in the yachting world.

I would expect marinas specifically geared towards larger yachts (30 m +) would be a better investment than yacht construction or repair. Presently, these yachts are forced to anchor out when they visit many ports OR they find themselves in commercial port areas without sufficient amenities. Even when new builds slow down or when owners defer maintenance for economic reasons, their yachts must be berthed somewhere!

Finally, from my experience as the owner of a 67′ (20 m) sailing yacht and experiences of other “regular” yacht owners, I believe tho corporate culture of most of the yachting world (builder, maintenance, etc) is dismal. Providing questionable quality that is often based upon looking at the owner as a very deep pocket, it seems that there are major problems. Best practices borrowed from other industries could allow new ownership at building/repair facilities to make existing businesses much more profitable (simple view seems to be that while looking at a deep pocket, businesses frequently forget to adopt efficient business practice because they are just passing cost along to the customer…its almost like the government contractor mentality…) I digress…

Else, one can make money just setting up shop nearby and pulling customers away from the old established businesses by providing quality and service… On the west coast of the US, a good example is to look at the establishment and growth of Baja Naval which has pulled much repair and hull extension business away from Southern California in terms of the 15-40 meter size yachts. Now, they have purchased a nearby commercial boatyard allowing them to venture into much larger yachts. With a good marina to boot, they are doing quite well.

Enough meandering thought… I’ll look forward to reading more of your thoughts on this topic in the future.

1) have an apple tv and love it — it does video streaming from the mac and trailer streaming from apple.com but not tv/movie streaming yet (tho a rental model is rumoured), and dvd integration is not too bad (especially if you buy a ‘turbo264′: http://www.elgato.com/)... I really think it’s a dark horse in apple’s portfolio of game-changing products/businesses (the new youtube widget shows how web video content can seamlessly make its way onto your HDTV… once we have a Joost widget we don’t need the TV networks anymore…)

2) there are also rumours of gaming coming to atv, and of course at the wwdc jobs intro’d harry potter and other big titles on the mac… but the point I was going to make is the rise of asynchronous but immersive online gaming e.g. Duels.com (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/06/ready-to-kill-some-time-and-some-enemies-try-duelscom/) personally think this is going to be a big market as it’s a rich gaming experience but does not require time to be dedicated by the player hence is perfect for casual gamers and of course requires not upfront console investment…

3) actually final third point on the subject of office — have you tried google spreadsheets? it’s pretty amazing what you can do in a web browser these days — MS is being squeezed from both ends…

FYI Gordon Brown visited our Greshsam St. trading floor (your old one) a few months back. Gave a good speech, but was obviously wriiten by someone else as was a bit too city-rah-rah; so not believable that it was Mr. Brown’s true feelings