Since most of us are stuck at home, armchair sailing, for the time being, we have compiled a list of our favorite sailing publications, many offering SIP specials so you can safely read from the comfort of your living room. These magazines bring us great content year after year, rain or shine, pandemic or none. If we are stronger together, then these publications are ahead of the curve, as the stories they share, relationships they foster and businesses they support are too numerous to count. Staying connected is the cornerstone of any community, making these magazines the link for sailors worldwide. It is our hope that in the post-pandemic world, independent publications thrive because we have all come to realize how much we rely on being connected.
After you are done reading and dreaming about future sailing, go put in your 2020 Summer Sailstice plans!
Spinsheet
Offering Every issue online
Written by sailors for sailors. Our sailing coverage goes "deep" rather than "wide," and we use this platform to celebrate the people, places, boats, personalities, and events that make the Chesapeake one of the world's premier sailing grounds. SpinSheet's reputation has been built over 24 years of delivering high-quality editorial and high-impact, targeted advertising to the mid-Atlantic sailing community. Every issue of SpinSheet is distributed at more than 750 carefully-chosen and closely monitored locations throughout the mid-Atlantic. Interested in becoming a distribution point?
SpinSheet was founded in the summer of 1995 by Mary Iliff Ewenson and Dave Gendell. Since our early days, the SpinSheet staff has grown to a dozen full-timers, with a few dozen contributing writers and photographers, and a handful of devoted distribution drivers.
48 North
Offers subscription and online access to past issues here.
48° North has always been the sailing magazine of the Pacific Northwest, and now it is that and much more. In the last few years, our family has grown and our subject matter has broadened along with our horizons. In 2018 48° North became part of the Northwest Maritime Center and reaffirmed our commitment to engage and educate people of all generations in traditional and contemporary maritime life in the spirit of adventure and discovery. In January 2020, we joined forces with the most successful boating website in the Pacific Northwest, Three Sheets Northwest, which was the catalyst for this awesome new web platform. We are deeply honored to welcome the fans, friends, and readers of Three Sheets Northwest, and we’re thrilled to add their Editor, Andy Cross, to the 48° North staff permanently.
Latitude 38
Read the current issue as well as past issues dating back to 2005 here, until April 24th you can subscribe to the SIP special of 3 months for only $10 delivered to your door.
Since the publication of our first issue in 1977, Latitude 38 has championed a way of life with a style unique among sailing magazines. Often imitated but never matched, we’ve gone from that funky regional publication to a laid-back California standard to an “alternative” authority for sailors across the nation and around the world.
Everyone at Latitude is dedicated to bringing you the most compelling read in sailing. People sail for escape, adventure, fun and just to get away from it all. Those are the same reasons to read the magazine each month. If you're not sailing and need an alternative, pick up the latest issue brought to you by the people below and the many sailors and contributors who help make sailing and reading Latitude an almost synonymous past time.
Latitudes & Attitudes
Offering Free Access to all 2019 & 2020 issues here.
Latitudes & Attitudes, founded by Bob & Bitchin in 1997, formerly known as Cruisers Outpost. Latitudes & Attitudes has been bringing great content to sailors around the world for more than 20 years.
Points East
Current and past issues available online here.
Points East is New England’s favorite boating magazine, available free of charge at all the places boaters haunt along the coast, from Greenwich, Connecticut to Machias, Maine, and even a few places beyond. Each issue is chock full of stories by our readers, sharing with us their adventures, experiences, and sometimes mishaps. Our regular columnists, Dave Roper and David Buckman, provide enriching perspectives forged from their own experiences plying our beautiful waters. With coverage of the sailboat racing scene, updates on what’s happening with local marine businesses, reviews of the latest nautical literature, advice from our ace fishermen, and much more, it’s no wonder folks tell us they eagerly await each issue.
Points East publishes 9 times a year (we skip a few of those nasty winter months) and comes to you through the hard work of our dedicated team of professionals, including editors, artists, writers, account managers, and delivery ambassadors. (Well, it’s really not that hard, and it sometimes doesn’t even feel like work!) We love what we do here at Points East, and we hope that shows through in each issue.
Wooden Boat
Offering the May/June 2020 as a free digital issues.
For more than 40 years, WoodenBoat Publications has provided readers with a dynamic editorial environment that combines emerging technologies with traditional methods of boat design, construction, and repair. Jon Wilson founded the company in September 1974 with the publication of the first issue of WoodenBoat magazine—which he assembled from his off-the-grid cabin in North Brooksville, Maine. He sold 400 individual copies and signed up 200 subscribers at the Newport Sailboat Show that year, and WoodenBoat has been thriving ever since—and diversifying.
Good Old Boat
Offering March / April issues for free download.
Good Old Boat was founded in 1998 by Great Lakes sailors Karen Larson and Jerry Powlas. The couple met because of sailing and enjoyed exploring Lake Superior aboard their C&C 30, Mystic. They were rank-and-file sailors, with a modest boat and modest plans. They maintained and upgraded Mystic themselves. They weren’t in the market for a new boat with a six-figure price tag. They were like all the sailors they knew, yet it didn’t seem like any of the sailing magazines on the shelves spoke to them. The answer was obvious and ambitious: they would start their own sailing magazine. They’d never run a magazine, but they tapped into a rich, unserved market and got lots of help from the A-list of boating writers of the time. The first issues featured the bylines of Nigel Calder, Don Casey, John Vigor, Ted Brewer, Dave Gerr, Lin and Larry Pardey, Reese Palley, and others. And the enthusiasm hasn’t waned.
But time passed. Just months before publication of the 20th anniversary issue, Karen and Jerry wondered how the years had flown by. Running a magazine takes away from sailing and the couple decided they should retire and spend more time sailing. Rather than sell their magazine (their baby) to an outside publishing conglomerate, they found willing and eager staff to carry on the spirit and excellence of Good Old Boat.
Curiously, boats yet to be built when that first issue was released, are now time-tested good old boats. Funny how that happens.
Good Old Boat sails on.