We’re not like the other sailing magazines, but I know you know this already. The point I want to make is that we’re not really of a place. At the Annapolis boat show last fall, introducing our almost-20-year-old magazine to show-goers, many would immediately ask, “Where are you guys based?”
Oh boy.
“Well…Karla, over there, lives in North Dakota—and that’s Nancy,” I’d offer pointing, “she came here from Florida. Jeremy, our senior editor, lives not too far away, on the Chesapeake. Tom and Sandy—passing out magazines over there—well, they’re cruisers, I think their boat is someplace on the ICW right now. Let’s see, Chuck, out selling advertising to vendors, is a four-boat owner and sails out of Florida too. My wife, two daughters, and I are cruising sailors, in fact I left my wife and kids in Fiji to come here. So I guess we’re based kind of everywhere, the team does a lot of emailing.”
And that imperfect explanation addresses the locales of just a few of the folks responsible for getting this magazine into your mailbox and onto newsstands. It doesn’t address the rest of the folks on our masthead or all the freelance reader/writers who produce our content. The Good Old Boat team is literally global, everywhere — we may be in that boat off to starboard, sailing beside you!
I met many of you in Annapolis, Maryland, in early October. After the show I flew to California and met a few of you at the Morro Bay Yacht Club. In mid-October, I shook hands with readers at the wharf in Santa Barbara, the Ventura Harbor Boatyard in Ventura, and throughout nearby Channel Islands Harbor in Oxnard. I’m writing today from my land base in Southern Arizona, but after this cyclone season will return to our 1978 Fuji 40 in Musket Cove, Fiji.
Ken and LouAnn Roberts aboard Godspede
Good Old Boat Contributing Editor Rob Mazza and his wife, Za, are Canadians who often cruise Lake Ontario in their C&C Corvette, Trillium IV. Rob told me that when Karen wooed him years ago, urging him on board, she promised, “Rob, we will make you famous!”
Rob says he can now confirm that she was right. This past summer, stopped at a dock off downtown Kingston, Ontario. Rob commented to his neighbors on their well-maintained Ontario 32, Godspede. “Once our conversation had proceeded beyond pleasantries, it seemed appropriate for more formal introductions. I said, ‘My name is Rob Mazza, and I’m cruising with my wife Za.’ I was suddenly familiar to my new friend, Ken Roberts, the owner of Godspede. ‘Rob Mazza!? No wonder you know so much about the Ontario 32. I read all your articles in Good Old Boat!’”
So keep your eyes open. We’re among you. Say hello when you see one of us. We’ll likely be wearing the Good Old Boat ball cap or shirt.
