Boatworks=Sail=Fishwrap

[sailaway21]

It took me a couple of issues. I thought I'd give Baotworks magazine a shot even though it was put out by the guys at Sail, which my parakeet has a subscription to. So I finally pulled the trigger on a subscription and I get maybe three issues and suddenly I'm getting Sail magazine addresssed to me. That didn't surprise me too much since they'd called me last year to ask how I was enjoying their magazine, the magazine I hadn't been getting for two years. And believe me, the subscription departemnt are the sharp ones. So today I noticed I've got a fresh supply of colored fish wrap and risked opening the front page, only to notice that Boatworks is now just a section of the old magazine I had more trouble shaking than shingles. Why couldn't they have combined Sail with Boatworks instead of vice-versa. Maybe they could have made Sail a special tear-out section so that i could tear it out and throw it away. Or better yet, the shipping department could have done it in advance for me.

If they'd of kept Boatworks and added a smidge of Sail, they'd be about like Practical Boatowner from the UK, not a bad magazine. A magazine focused, perhaps, more on the boat you've got versus the one you'll never have. "Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in again." Boy, I sure hope I didn't get the two year subscription. If I did, I'm gonna have to buy's me a goat.

[artbyjody]

Originally Posted by sailaway21

I
If they'd of kept Boatworks and added a smidge of Sail, they'd be about like Practical Boatowner from the UK, not a bad magazine. A magazine focused, perhaps, more on the boat you've got versus the one you'll never have. "Just when I thought I was out, they drag me back in again." Boy, I sure hope I didn't get the two year subscription. If I did, I'm gonna have to buy's me a goat.

Goats are a good investment - they will allow you to get rid of mowing the grass and thus you can apply for a carbon credit ???

[Giulietta]

SA

when I flew in this week I stopped to buy a SAIL magazine to read on the plane...

I quit...useless I found it

[sailaway21]

If I let 'em eat the grass, they aren't gonna have room for the Sail magazine. Besides, do you know how tough that stuff is to digest? You can't just get any old goat and feed 'em Sail. You gotta get special goats, like Portagee goats, goats that been trained, trained to eat almost anything, like, well, like anything-I ain't sayin.

[artbyjody]

That's all I have to say - just do not get ones that look like G - I saw them on ebay - freaky

[ReverendMike]

... Calmly waiting for my Sail subscription to expire.... CALMLY, I SAID, CALMLY....

(It's actually a difficult magazine to read, which i find strange. I can plow through SAILING in a long afternoon, but Sail requires at least three seperate sessions to wade through. I wouldn't bother except that I paid for it, damn it, I'm going to punish myself by reading it! AKA too cheap to cut my loses and take it directly from mailbox to trashcan.)

[Valiente]

Originally Posted by Giulietta

SA

when I flew in this week I stopped to buy a SAIL magazine to read on the plane...

I quit...useless I found it

Most of the glossy magazines are useless and are aimed either at someone with money and no boat, or someone who doesn't sail their current boat and wants a bigger one to not sail.

I read Practical Sailor (although I know it has its critics) and Ocean Navigator, which are both much more attuned to my interests. The latter one has nice touches like sextant exercises in the back and a very non-chalant approach to statements like "in Patagonia, the winds are so strong that it proved necessary to weld frames for 200 metre reels of 3/4" poly line to make a four-point spider web to the shore".

This implies 1) they have bar and tube stock at hand, 2) they have welding equipment aboard, 3) they have 800 metres of line...somewhere and 4) they have a deck capable of being welded, and they don't mind doing it (grinding, prepping, priming, topcoating).

We are not reading about crabcake recipes in Grenada in this magazine, or how the problem of the on-board spa fogging the plasma screen on the latest Bendytoy has been solved...thank goodness!

I have nothing against that sort of thing, and there is much to be said about scratching oneself in the presence of a tropical breeze, a rum-based beverage and a hammock a metre above the foredeck, but it's just not what I look for in a sailing magazine anymore.

I do pick up about one "Good Old Boat" per year, because they have articles like "how to put a three-piece sectional in a Hinterhoeller 28" or "how to change your oil from your spreaders using the Venturi effect" that reveal to me the genius that only a retired machinist on Lake Michigan on a strict boat budget can exhibit. But it's an expensive magazine otherwise.

I would rather put my money into things like the 500-piece Dremel accessory kit I got yesterday for $24 or the plunge router I bought for $99 (it is ridiculously heavy for a hand tool...a good thing in this case). I have an ancient but vigourous black cherry tree we've been trimming for the last 10 years and a pile of seasoned wood I can turn into short lengths of planks to make battens and boxes for nav gear...fortunate as the existing wood on board is black cherry.