About us…

Thank you for your interest in our little magazine devoted to the pleasures of messing about in boats. After 34 years and just over 700 issues (we published 24 times a year 1983-2007, now 12 times yearly) we have yet to run out of fascinating and informative articles (mostly submitted by our readers) extolling the pleasures to be had messing about in affordable small boats unspoiled by today’s overwhelming technology.

Our Home Page is the cover of the current issue, and its table of contents on this page illustrates a typical range of topics covered in each 60-page issue. Looking down the list you will find a broad range of reports on events and gatherings, reader adventures afloat, historical stories from simpler times, readers’ tales of designing, building and restoring the boats of their dreams, as well as regular columns by contributing readers on a variety of small boat related topics. Included on this website is this current issue’s feature (cover) story to better give you a look at what sort of reading you might expect to enjoy.

If these stimulate further interest we suggest that you request the Free Sample Copy we offer. Should this then suggest you’d like to see more but still are wary of committing $32 for a full year subscription, we offer a three month Trial Subscription for $8. All these options can be found on the Subscription Order Form page.

Another service we provide to any interested persons (subscribers or not) are scanned copies of bygone articles found in the Index of Articles 1983-2000. These can be ordered from amongst the thousands of articles we published during those years from the Index, the details are located on the “Index of Articles 1983-2000” introductory page. The Index stops in 2000 as that is as far as a volunteer reader undertook to inventory our archives at that time. We have had no time to pursue indexing the years 2001 to the present, we’re too busy turning out the monthly 60 pagers we now offer.

I launched this magazine in the spring of 1983 as I found the available consumer oriented magazines were not speaking to my interests and the various small club newsletters came out too infrequently and were too small to cover the multitude of topics I felt were out there of interest to myself and others interested in do-it-yourself small boating. The original 16 page issues grew to 40 pages, published twice a month, 24 times a year. In 2008 we had to cut back to a monthly schedule as the postage rates skyrocketed 40%, more than we could afford without a major increase in the subscription price. To compensate for this cutback in frequency we increased the size to 60 pages. Our readers have found this acceptable as we carry on in our 35th year.

On the Cover ...

That’s the Silvana W. Beal looking at you this month, just hauled out on the oldest continuously operating marine railway hereabouts at the Gloucester (MA) Maritime Heritage site. She is 107 years old and looks it. No longer fit for the dude schooner trade in Maine, she was collected up by Essex shipbuilder Harold Burnham and sailed down to Gloucester from Bar Harbor. Harold’s plans for her are for a total restoration aimed at the National Register of Historic Places recognition and fit to operate out of Gloucester as a companion schooner to his Ardelle. It’s going to take a while. Harold says it will be “fun”. For the whole story see pages 20-25.