Practical Sailors 40th anniversary came and went last year without hoopla. We talked a while about marking the event with a stroll down memory lane, or a photo-essay tracing our evolution from a courier-type bulletin to our current incarnation, or a best of collection celebrating our most talked-about tests. They were all nice ideas, but at age 40, your limitations become clearer, and routines that a twenty-something might chafe at offer a measure of peace-why break them? Daily ruts feel more like grooves.
At 40, it seems your purpose finally crystallizes. You get a sense of where to focus your efforts for maximum effect. The more we thought about how to mark the occasion, the more we realized that anything more than a few column inches would be wasting good money you had paid us to be doing something else: testing rope clutches, bending anchors, or comparing bottom paints.
And so I gave up brainstorming and set out to check on one of our testers who was trying out a new homemade bird-deterrent in a notoriously bird-ridden marina near our office in Sarasota, Fla. In a slip not far from where our test boat was docked, there was a Tayana 37 I recognized. It was owned by a couple my wife and I had met years before in the western Caribbean while cruising. On this day, an unfamiliar couple was aboard the boat, fiddling with the mainsail.
I introduced myself, and they said, yes, they knew our friends. They had recently bought the Tayana in Naples, Fla. Our friends had swallowed the anchor and moved ashore. Its our first cruising boat, the man said.
I told them what I knew about the Tayana 37, a quintessential cruiser designed by Bob Perry. They said they were arranging to sail with more experienced friends later that week. Their short-term goal was a passage to the Bahamas in a year. The womans enthusiasm showed. After that, well see, she said.
The boat was in good condition, but hadnt been sailed in a while. A few issues needed addressing, but most of them were cosmetic. They asked about anchor snubbers and how to deal with chafe at the bobstay. There is plenty of information on the Internet, the man said. The trouble is that so much of it is contradictory. You get three opinions on everything.
More like four, I said.
They asked more questions, and I thought again about the 40th anniversary and how any horn-tooting extravaganza would mean less time doing what I loved best: finding answers for sailors like this couple. What chain has the best galvanizing? How often should I change my antifreeze? What material is best for a bimini top? How do I get rid of these &$%^# birds?!?! Straight answers to good questions, thats our specialty-that much hasn’t changed.
I said goodbye to my new friends and went back to the office with my notes. (Our testers spider-like contraption, by the way, seemed to be working well-stay tuned.) The more I poked around the archives looking for examples of how far we have come, the more I realized how lucky sailors are that Practical Sailor exists.
Our online library, representing just 14 of those 40 years, is terrific resource for sailors of all interest levels. It isn’t the sheer volume of information that impresses me. Comparing the articles from just 10 years ago to the what we do today, I noted an obvious shift in tone. There is a sureness today that comes only with experience.
Doubt is central to what we do. Even the most promising products get a good sniff from the BS-detector. But after 40 years of breaking boat gear, you get a pretty good sense of what will work and what it takes to stand the test of time.
So there it is. A toast to 40 years-and many more to come. Onward.
