Magazine Suggestions Needed

Hi Folks,

I have let all my sailing magazine subscriptions expire in preparation to buying a trawler. I am looking for suggestions for interesting cruising-type magazines aimed at trawler folks. I need something to read while I suffer on the treadmill, so boating-related stuff takes my mind off of the pain .

Thanks in advance.

Cheers, Bill

Passagemaker is the likeliest suggestion, although it has struggled over the years to settle on its "brand." It's sort of half "boating" mag and half "lifestyle" mag. The boating part is usually good; the lifestyle part sometimes comes off rather smug. Understandably, the advertising targets an affluent "lifestyle" readership.

Soundings can also be good - bit more eclectic in terms of stories and advertising.

I call most boating-related publications "boat porn." I shouldn't even be looking, and most of what's portrayed is beautifully unattainable - but hey, a guy's gotta look!

SEA magazine is another good one, it is tailored for the section of the left coast you live on.

Marty.................

PassageMaker.

PassageMaker.


I have been getting free subscriptions to PMY and Show Boats and one other mag whose name escapes me.


Show Boats is a PITA as they cater to those who wouldn't mind dropping $150K or more on a stupid WATCH. I mean who in the hell does that?


I also like Sea because of their left coast section. I don't pay much attention to their boat reviews because they never find fault with ANYTHING they do a writeup on.


PMY also caters to the high end boater but they do have some pretty good articles.


My question to all boat mag editors: Are you so blinded by the shiny newness of the boats you review that you are not capable of finding fault with them? Not every boat built is perfect in design, workmanship, layout, materials, etc. Why not be honest and tell the bad with the good?


Rant off. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

MartySchwartz said:

SEA magazine is another good one, it is tailored for the section of the left coast you live on.

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Yes to Sea Magazine.
They have great cruising, systems and maintenance articles.
They also offer a free one year digital issue.
Sea Magazine | Sea Magazine Digital Editions

When we had our sailboat we subscribed to Practical Sailor, Good Old Boat and Cruising World. Upon the move to the trawler, we started reading Passagemaker, but that magazine has really gone downhill in the past year or two from our perspective (and especially now that Steve D'Antonio is no longer a contributor).

The only magazine we find valuable enough to subscribe to at this point is Practical Sailor. We really like the unbiased reviews. While it does cater to sailors, at least 50% or more of every issues is relevant to both power and sail (and often much more than 50%). We purchased a lot of gear based on their recommendations (which usually coincide with our own research).

I still pick up Cruising World at the airport once in a while, just to dream of far off cruising destinations. If we were in the market for a brand new boat, then maybe we would be looking at other boating magazines, as it seems most of them are now focused almost exclusively on expensive, large new boats.

The boating magazines are all great if you like to read advertising and positive boat reviews. The actual editorial content is for the most part the same old same old over and over. Frankly, you'll learn more on this forum than from any boating magazine. If the magazines aren't free, I don't even look at them anymore. But that's me.

GFC said:

PassageMaker.

My question to all boat mag editors: Are you so blinded by the shiny newness of the boats you review that you are not capable of finding fault with them? Not every boat built is perfect in design, workmanship, layout, materials, etc. Why not be honest and tell the bad with the good?


Rant off. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

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Magazines make their money off of advertisers. Usually the boat they are reviewing has paid them money for space in their mag....so would. You want to piss off the people that pay your bills???? That is why practical sailor is such a good one. They do not rely on advertising dollars to pay their bills. It is also why it is a relatively expensive subscription.

Carolena said:

The only magazine we find valuable enough to subscribe to at this point is Practical Sailor. We really like the unbiased reviews. While it does cater to sailors, at least 50% or more of every issues is relevant to both power and sail (and often much more than 50%). We purchased a lot of gear based on their recommendations (which usually coincide with our own research).

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PS used have a power slanted sister publication... Power Boat Reports.
Haven't looked in a few yrs whether they still offer it but might be worth checking.
Don
'08 MS 34HT
"Bacchus"

I work in the boating publication business and don't bother to read any of the magazines anymore. It's much more fun to read blogs, forums, etc. The perspectives are more diverse and the debates more entertaining. Some of the blogs I read because of the places they cruise and others because of the technical info they post. Boat reviews never really interested me anyway.

Bacchus said:

PS used have a power slanted sister publication... Power Boat Reports.
Haven't looked in a few yrs whether they still offer it but might be worth checking.
Don
'08 MS 34HT
"Bacchus"

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They bailed on the power boat publication several years ago. Had a subscription to them till then.

Marty............................

Pro Boat Builder will give information on modern construction and outfitting concepts.

Its not a fly weight National Geographic ,"the Force 10 I saw in the Erie Barge Canal ", style publication.

Education , not entertainment.

Perhaps just purchasing 10-15 years of Passagemaker back issues would be entertainment?

FF said:

Perhaps just purchasing 10-15 years of Passagemaker back issues would be entertainment?

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A couple of years ago I offered up a complete archive of PM to anyone who would cover shipping. They got recycled. And those were the GOOD years.


Keith

Retriever said:

I work in the boating publication business and don't bother to read any of the magazines anymore. It's much more fun to read blogs, forums, etc. The perspectives are more diverse and the debates more entertaining. Some of the blogs I read because of the places they cruise and others because of the technical info they post. Boat reviews never really interested me anyway.

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My favorite was Passagemaker. I cut out 10 years of SDA articles and a few others and put in a 3 inch binder with index to keep on the boat for rainy days. We recently stopped all mags. I spend 100 times more time here on TF, T+T, and MTOA. Where else can you get the best info on TP, which prop nut goes on first, and single vs twins?

I agree about Passagemaker. I still have the first 10 years worth in a box and I'm not giving them up. Now I just thumb through the new issues at Barnes and Noble.
I get a few freebies since the yacht brokerage business over a decade ago but they are worth what I pay for them.
Ocean Navigator is now a mere shadow if it's former self. Too bad, they were a good read. Professional Mariner and Tugboat Illustrated are good to see how the other half lives.
Recently PMY sent along a promising issue of something called 'Power Cruising'. Don't know anything about it but it seems promising. Like a slightly more commercial but original Passagemaker. I hope they continue to send it for free!

One reason I will keep going with PassageMaker is that my wife is the first to grab it when it comes through the mail and reads it from cover to cover.

That alone makes it worth it to me.

Montenido said:

Hi Folks,

I have let all my sailing magazine subscriptions expire in preparation to buying a trawler. I am looking for suggestions for interesting cruising-type magazines aimed at trawler folks. I need something to read while I suffer on the treadmill, so boating-related stuff takes my mind off of the pain .

Thanks in advance.

Cheers, Bill

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Contrary to several prior comments by other TF members the PM magazine would be far down my list for a source of "interesting cruising-type magazines".

FWIW, I enjoy reading some of the articles in the Waggoner Cruising Guide, Waggoner Cruising Guide - Pacific Northwest Boating along with Ocean Navigator online, Ocean Navigator: Marine Navigation and Ocean Voyaging Resources

None of the above...

Now when I got into planning cruises, I'd go for the guidebooks for the area. However, as to magazines, you can find more than you can possibly read online and most magazines will, at most, have one article of interest to you. Now, if I had an interest in something very specific, then I might go for a magazine. Just the boating magazines don't offer much you can't get online and are so busy with promotion for advertisers. Then the other thing I'd do is find kindle books of those who have made cruises in areas you're thinking of or of the type you're considering. That plus search online blogs.

As an example, if you want to get a feeling for the loop, you're not going to learn much in a 2 to 3 page magazine article. You'll learn some on the loop web site, some from Captain John, and more from bloggers who have done it. Then pick up a coupe of Kindle books of families and couples and follow them all the way around.

I believe magazines have their place but it's in providing information not easily available elsewhere, covering current topics and exceptionally well written articles. I must put a disclosure in here. We do own a regional magazine publishing business. I'm just not impressed by the magazines on boating and I've read them all from performance boats, small power boats, to megayachts to sailing.

On the treadmill, I'd pull up some kindle. I'd recommend a few to start:

Melanie Wood's Captain Logs. Diamond Lil' does the Loop. Diamond Lil' does the Bahamas, etc.

Gunkholing in the Salish Sea

The Plastic Butterfly

Trawler Micki. My single handed adventure up the Pacific

Leap of Faith. Quit your job and live on a boat

Life's a Ditch

South to Alaska

Cruising the Big U

Island Fever, Cruising the Bahamas, Caribbean Islands

Family Aweigh

Great Loop Cruising: Two on a Trawler

Reflection on America's Great Loop: A Baby Boomer Couple's....

Yachting on the Cheap

The Next Port

Up the River, or Yachting on the Mississippi

Skirting the Shore. Reflections on Sailing the Great Loop

Footloose on the Atlantic Waterway

The Atlantic Crossing Challenge

Crossing an Ocean Under Power

Then one of the best boating stories I've ever read. Will keep you on edge and in suspense. Runaway Yacht by John Devore.

There are many more. Those are just a few I had handy.

I've read just about all the marine publications over the years and have boiled them all down to a very few. (Passagemaker is not one of them.)

Pacific Yachting (Really covers the West coast)
Boat U.S. (Rule changes, etc)
★★★ BoatDiesel.com (Very specific info on my engine(s)
Sea Magazine (Cover to Cover!)
Various blogs and boat owners groups

The rest of the periodicals have too much fluff!

Thanks BandB!

You just answered my "what to read this winter" question! And I think I'll drag a bankers box of "Wooden Boat" down from the attic too!

Thanks! I'm the managing editor of the Waggoner Guide. Not sure what the etiquette is on this forum for "commercial" posting, so someone please tell me if I overstep.

If there are certain types of articles you'd like to see, questions you have about boating in the PNW, questions about what we do or how we do it, please let me know. It's way more fun to put together a publication/website when I know readers care.

Diesel Duck 492 said:

Contrary to several prior comments by other TF members the PM magazine would be far down my list for a source of "interesting cruising-type magazines".

FWIW, I enjoy reading some of the articles in the Waggoner Cruising Guide, Waggoner Cruising Guide - Pacific Northwest Boating along with Ocean Navigator online, Ocean Navigator: Marine Navigation and Ocean Voyaging Resources

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high wire said:

i spend 100 times more time here on tf, t+t, and mtoa.

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t+t?
Mtoa?

All great information already provided, I might add and its free, Power and Motoryacht, they have some nice adventure articles related to Flemings and Norhavn's, did I say its free?

Retriever said:

Thanks! I'm the managing editor of the Waggoner Guide. Not sure what the etiquette is on this forum for "commercial" posting, so someone please tell me if I overstep.

If there are certain types of articles you'd like to see, questions you have about boating in the PNW, questions about what we do or how we do it, please let me know. It's way more fun to put together a publication/website when I know readers care.

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I would say the Waggoner Guide is excellent and when we were heading into the area it covers, we made excellent use of it. There are many excellent publications about specific areas. That's part of the negative of a national or worldwide magazine is that so much of it is about areas you have no plans to see.

Your website is also very nice and your pricing is great. I just looked at your site now and it reminded me how good your coverage of customs going both ways is. Just saw your poultry announcement.

I know some of the Chesapeake publications are very useful to people in that area.

I erased my comments as, upon reflection, it was a thread hijack (not to mention somewhat rude).

Having said all that, Wooden Boat has many good articles even for bleach bottle or metal boaters, I also like Western Mariner but its very workboat oriented. Once upon a time I liked the local Pacific Yachting, I even contributed to it once(!) but now I am only online: This site, GCaptain, Boat Installer's Rant and many blogs.

Interesting thread. Let's see:

- We get Showboats International, just for kicks, just so we can drool over mega yachts we will never be able to afford, but they are beautiful to see. And the articles are often interesting too, like a couple issues ago when they did a feature on the Kennedy family boats. They just recently changed the style of the magazine to add more general "rich guy" content (like jet chartering ads and six-figure wristwatch ads and articles about stocking your boat with bottles of champagne priced in the four figures) but oh well, I don't hate the Evil 1%, and who knows, maybe someday we'll go to the Monaco Yacht Show just for kicks. (On a more serious note though, there are some pretty interesting graphics each issue on large boat industry trends -- the number of orders placed, tonnage, trends on boat length. Every time we have a boat sales and marketing discussion on here I think of some of those graphics -- even though it's just the relatively tiny mega yacht sliver of the market.)

- We get Cruising Outpost, Bob Bitchin's re-born magazine formerly known as Latitudes and Attitudes. Probably 85% sailing, but in a complete, utter contrast to Showboats International, we enjoy the irreverent tone and the funky layout and the uneven proofreading. A mag for normal humans.

- We get MarinaLife, came with our MarinaLife membership. Kind of short, but we really like it -- even though as long as we're trapped above the dam on the Missouri River we won't use any of those marinas for a sadly long time.

- We get Boat US -- which is mostly geared to smaller powerboats and weekender/boat-on-a-trailer kind of guys, but interesting even so. Came with our Boat US membership. Good article recently for example on the concept of virtual buoys -- no more clang, clang, clang of actual buoys on the water, just disembodied electronic pings by GPS or AIS.

I used to get PassageMaker too, but stopped. Just not much value for some reason, hard for me to pin down exactly why, but it just doesn't do anything for me any more.

kthoennes said:

Interesting thread. Let's see:

- We get Showboats International, just for kicks, just so we can drool over mega yachts we will never be able to afford, but they are beautiful to see. And the articles are often interesting too, like a couple issues ago when they did a feature on the Kennedy family boats. They just recently changed the style of the magazine to add more general "rich guy" content (like jet chartering ads and six-figure wristwatch ads and articles about stocking your boat with bottles of champagne priced in the four figures) but oh well, I don't hate the Evil 1%, and who knows, maybe someday we'll go to the Monaco Yacht Show just for kicks. (On a more serious note though, there are some pretty interesting graphics each issue on large boat industry trends -- the number of orders placed, tonnage, trends on boat length. Every time we have a boat sales and marketing discussion on here I think of some of those graphics -- even though it's just the relatively tiny mega yacht sliver of the market.)

I used to get PassageMaker too, but stopped. Just not much value for some reason, hard for me to pin down exactly why, but it just doesn't do anything for me any more.

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The vast majority of the things you like on Showboats International are available on their web site. All the industry trends and builds. We stopped our subscriptions to it and PassageMaker as we could get enough from both online for free plus we're not home 2/3 of the time when a magazine would arrive.

Plus I just generally don't like mail. I do everything I can to eliminate or minimize it. Now, I know that's just me, but there's so very little that comes in the mail that is important to us, as we do everything online. Don't want to get home after six weeks to a stack of magazines and none of them worth having someone forward to me.

Yep, I sure understand that desire to shed "stuff," including mail and magazines. I am pretty firm now about throwing out magazines eventually. When I was younger I'd buy those shelf-box things for my collection of Fine Woodworking and put them in neat chronological order. What a waste of time and money.

I might be risking thread drift here, but sometimes I think it's a generational thing, a reaction to the huge generational transfer of assets and "stuff." The tyranny of stuff. I remember when my grandmother died whom I loved deeply, one of my aunts offered me Gram's huge red velvet Victorian couch. I appreciated the offer, but what the heck would I do with that? My mother was an avid stamp collector all her life. Now she's trying to find somebody who wants it. More and more often lately I ask myself, "Is this something I want to carry around with me the rest of my life?" Most of the time the answer is no, and out it goes. We still get those paper magazines for now, but no piles, no collections, no stacks.

(I have a gigantic collection of tools and machinery at home, three car garage. At the boat I have two small toolboxes (one mechanical, one electrical) and a couple Tupperware small parts trays, like fishing lure boxes. That's all. Most of the time that's good enough for what I need to do, as long as I'm creative and don't get all fussy and anal about the correct shaped tip on the soldering iron. The tyranny of stuff.)