Water Craft Magazine

[Doug Canada]

Water Craft Magazine

After several (fine) Guinness I feel impowered to ask this question about the competition.
Is the magazine "Water Craft" good?

http://www.watercraft.co.uk/

In particular I'm interested in their current issue concerning the "Cape Cutter 19", has anyone read it? I cannot find the magazine anywhere.

Thanks,
Doug

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[StevenBauer]

I love Watercraft Magazine. It focuses on boats under 25' loa. Great photography, good ballence of homebuilt/probuilt. Track it down, you'll like it. The CC19 article wasn't about building her but about sailing her.

Steven

[OEX]

One of the best boat mags out there in my opinion

cheers, bruce
Admin WBRF

[Steven R]

For someone who's interests lie more with "small craft", IMHO Water Craft is the best. I have to say that I discovered Water Craft when WB was on a long run of filling their pages with info on the "big boys" and I got fed up scouring each issue for the smallest morsel on anything having to do with small craft. I'm glad WB seems to recently be giving small craft some attention, again.

Sorry... I guess I took advantage of this topic to go on a mini-rant. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Meerkat]

Watercraft is primo!

[Billy Bones]

Nice complement to wb.

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

My favourite mag - note that I spelled "favourite" as the Brits do now that I've been receiving it! I have bought all the back issues still available too - great winter reading.

The difference with WB for me is that Watercraft dosn't take itself so very seriously. At times WB seems so contorted over doing things "right" and seems lately to focus on so many yachts rather than something attainable by me.

And that has always been of interest to me. Isn't there a much bigger market of readers out there interested in boats under 25 feet instead of the boats over forty feet?

I recently went through the index of back issues available on the WB site and ended up ordering about a dozen total since WB began to be printed. Those are the only ones that caught my eye that I thought worth ordering. Well, I got them and ended up only getting something worthwhile out of half of the ones I ordered.

Watercraft isn't so loaded with ads either. Much better photography too, Mendelowicz not withstanding. When I go through all the back issues of Watercraft (and I have a ton of them) there is at least one very interesting article in each and usually two. If you want small boat sailing at its best Watercraft has it hands down over WB. Sorry but its true. Read this quick before I get "Scotted".

[Billy Bones]

I'd disagree about the ads and photos. Without doing a page count I'd say our host is comparable. And the photography....it's wonderful and different, but it is by no means better. For the small/day/open boat and boatbuilding enthusiast it is by far the more direct vehicle.

I can't get over the photo announcing the home built small boat contest in the last issue. It showed a bright transom with titebond smeared all over it under the finish. "They've got to be kidding!" I thought to myself.

You might say it's dead smack in the middle between MAIB for the small boat builder/cruiser and WB for polished production value.

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

Originally posted by Billy Bones:
You might say it's dead smack in the middle between MAIB for the small boat builder/cruiser and WB for polished production value.

That says it p-r-e-c-i-c-e-l-y. Very well put but you must agree that the photography in Watercraft is just a bit better reproduction than MAIB. Yep, just an itsey bitsey bit better.

[ 01-28-2006, 09:05 PM: Message edited by: Captain Pre-Capsize ]

[StevenBauer]

[Steve Lansdowne]

WaterCraft doesn't limit itself to just wooden boats, I believe. Many of the articles are short and some are written by "readers" who submit their stories. They tend to be shorter than the multi-page WB articles. Worth subscribing if you're into small boats.

[OEX]

Much more humble than WB, they have fun and do not take themselves so seriously. Its target audience seems to be more everyday Joe’s than WB. Do not get me wrong, love WB, but it can be a bit dry compared to WC and Classic Boat.

Cheers

[StevenBauer]

I'm reading No 55 right now and after the piece about Ed Burnett gaff cutter Frolic and one about Paul Gartsides new Troller Yacht there on pages 62 and 63 was the piece about the Steam powered outboard! How cool is that?

Steven

[Billy Bones]

Cool indeed. Number 50 was essentially all steam.

Other of WCs merits are their perenial and enthusiastic coverage of the european raids, which our host is now getting into as well.

And as was mentioned above, the sailing characteristics of the boats are well played up, although you'll find widely varying sailing expertise behind the comments sometimes.

And if you are fond of Paul Gartside's designs as I emhpatically am, you will be pleased with wc. Both WoodenBoat and Water Craft have done well by Paul.