[cgha33]

What sailing periodical - presumably a monthly - do you find most useful?

I''m a cruiser and looking for a good source of ideas on how to enhance my experience on the water.

Is it Practical Sailor? Sailing? Cruising?
Good Old Boat? Something else?

Let''s hear it.

[tsenator]

If you are a real cruiser I would say Lat''s and Att''s

(http://www.latsandatts.net/)

And then maybe Crusing World and Practical Sailor

[namaste04]

I would have to respectfilly disagree with tsenator.... We find Latts& Atts to be often offensive and not very useful--- there are tons of folks who love it though. BUT I think it''s a love-it-or-hate-it kind of magazine.

We get Cruising World, Practical Sailor, and BlueWater Sailing, in addition to the Seven Seas Bulletin. They don''t all always have useful info, but often enough an issue comes that is jam-packed with info on issues we happen to be dealing with right at at that moment, and that makes them all worthwhile.

They all have different uses, too, as you probably know. If you''re upgrading & outfitting a boat, P.S. is incredibly useful for evaluating products. C.W. and B.W.S. both offer articles on world travel, DIY projects, and new boats/products. BWS tends to be less well-written, and a lot less "glossy", IMHO, but also seems to have more in depth how-to articles, particularly on things like navigation, sail trim, etc.

i wouldn''t rank any one as the best all-around mag, since they all have their strong points.

My advice would be to buy or borrow a copy of each for a couple months and see what suits your style and needs best.

STacey
www.sailnamaste.com

[TrishLambert]

Stacey is right. There are different strokes for different folks when it comes to mags on living aboard and cruising. Lats&Atts can be a little "in your face" style-wise--that''s the "persona" that the publisher has cultivated from day one. And it has lots of fans. There is often quite useful info, along with lots of stuff about parties and crazy cruisers.

Cruising World has great info...these days it''s slick mainstream magazine (I''m dating myself...I remember when it was a more folksy, down to earth piece), which means that it has more advertiser-oriented stuff. I don''t mean that it will steer you wrong in terms of advice and reviews, but it is well-stocked with pricey boats and gear, either in ads or in articles. For some time, it has also catered to the charter industry, and some issues are skewed that direction.

Practical Sailor (www.practical-sailor.com) is a good for reviews of all sorts, including boats (you can purchase individual boat reviews on the site). My local West Marine keeps back issues in a binder in their book section, and customers are welcome to browse...not sure if all WMs do that. Bluewater Sailing is the child of the former Practical Sailor publisher, so it tends to have the same kind of bent.

The SSCA monthly bulletins contain lots of input written by members from all over the place--in addition to practical info for specific topics or geographical areas, it''s just a great way to stay inspired to go cruising! (www.ssca.org)

Living Aboard, Small Craft Advisor, and Good Old Boat are three other mags that you might want to check out.

Last, there are local free rags that can be really useful. Don''t know where you live--Latitude 38 is great for Pacific coast sailors, including those heading down to Mexico. Latitude 48 focuses on Pacific Northwest. Southwinds covers the Atlantic seaboard from Chesapeake Bay south. I''m sure there are others...you can find these freebies at your local chandlery.

Trish
www.takehersailing.com

[camaraderie]

In order of personal preference:
Blue Water Sailing
Lattitudes and Attitudes
Ocean Navigator
Cruising World

Best...GB

Over the past ten years I have subscribed to most of those mentioned (except Lats and Atts) and now recieve only Good Old Boat and Ocean Navigator.

[pspsail]

I like Good Old Boat and O Navigator also. Their articles don''t seem to be dictated by their advertisers which their better known, higher priced competitors suffer from badly.

[tsenator]

yeah I won''t disagree withe Stacey and Trish, its a fun mag but not everything to everyone. I don''t think any mag really does it all, I think you need more than a few.

No one mentioned Practical Boat Owner? I think its from the UK, it looks like a good Mag, with lots of good technical information, It seems to have a little less "fluff" than you get from some domestic mags, though obviously more aimed at the Euro sailor (lots of articles have measuremnents in meters'' etc).

BTW, I get Cruising World, Sailing, Sail and Practical Sailor.

i have subscribed to Practical Sailor the longest, if you are fitting out hardware, putting in systems, or doing just maintenance etc on your boat then I think this is the most valuable. For Cruising issues/stories, I''d say Cruising world. For the Most Fun I''d say Lats and Att''s. For the best photography I''d say Sailing.

ps. I''m not much of a fan of Sailing World, it seems lacking

[Jeff_H]

I think that if you only get one sailing magazine then ''Sail'' does the best job at covering a wide range of topics. It really provide the most ''useful information'' on the full gamit of sailing information.

I like Cruising World for its in depth coverage of cruising topics but it tends to avoid many of the more general sailing skills topics which is to be expected from a magazine called Cruising World.

I really like Sailing World and have gotten it nearly continuously since it began in the early 1960''s. It really does a great job of covering performance sailing which is its mandate in life.

I am not a big fan of Practical Sailor. Some of their testing is brilliant and provides a lot of useful information, but they come at some of this testing with certain biases and objectives that causes them to structure their testing techniques in a manner that does not provide very useful information. It is this mix of the useful with the misleading that had caused me to drop Practical Sailor.

My limited exposure to Lats and Atts has me putting them at the bottom of the ''Useful-O-meter''. Fun mag if you are not offended by the Attitude.

Jeff

[mcain]

To each his own. I raced for some years, then switched to cruising.
I like Seven Seas first--real experiences by real people. But a lot of detail about specific areas of the world. Gives a future cruiser something to look forward to.
Next is Ocean Navigator. They seem to have solid information that is well thought out.
Then, in order of preference:
Practical Sailor (some flaws in testing, but they test a wide range of models--something the rest of us can seldom afford to do, and has saved me money in the past, or pointed me at different brands and models that I otherwise would not have considered).
Latts & Atts--definitely a personal preference--you either love or hate them. The title says it all.
Cruising World: generally has articles that make more sense and seem to have more content.
Blue Water Sailing, Good Old boat and Living Aboard have some interesting articles on occasion.

Personally, IMHO, Sail concentrates on racing and the articles seem more shallow. I subscribe, but will not renew. OTOH, if I were still interested in club racing, I would like Sail better.

The only ones I go back to, after initial reading, are Seven Seas, Practical Sailor, and Ocean Navigator. The ones I enjoy most on first reading are L&A and Cruising World.

And, yes, I spend a lot of money on sailing magazines.