It’s the best because it’s for you and by you, a regular person.
It has the ultimate human scale.
OK, actually it has an average human scale. You *could* do anything in its pages. You can easily appreciate anything in it. Nothing here is putting you in your place or reminding you of it.
MAIB is a mag that has little online presence. Its 80-something editor don’t need that. He’s been publishing since about 1983, as I recall. I’ve been loyally following him since 1990 perhaps. Since when I first got the drift of the truly great mags out there in the world.
MAIB is black and white. It’s thrifty. It’s not printed on glossy paper. It runs stories written by regular people in varying amounts of a regular tone of voice. No affect. No what I call “glib tone.” Nothing by anyone in this mag ever rings false or trite. That’s really saying something. It’s a privilege of our world to be able to read this magazine.
In this latest issue, Number 10 of the 26th volume (Feb. 09) we find…
60 pages and about 35 entirely worthwhile stories.
A few that pop right up:
*”The Big Row, 452 miles in a Adirondack Guideboat, pt. 3.”
*”Waterlogged: 10 years of misadventures cruising Chesapeake and Pamlico”
*How to get along at your local marina
*Building a row/sail “Raider” in Estonia for the Finnish Raid
*Bolger’s fast daysailer, Queequeg
*The Oldest Volunteer — on the squarerigger in NYC, a fellow who actually went before the mast around the horn back when
*Living the crabber’s life in the 1970’s
*Wet and Hungry, an Atlantic fisherman’s life
*A beachable daysailer cruise around Lake Superior (extra sharp photo on cover)
*A canoe cruise in Prospectors following Henry Thoreau’s route
*plus a few photo/reports on small boat messabouts showing great little boats, none too fancy, most just right
Check out his courtesy homepage, which really gives you nothing but his address, then subscribe and tell im OYB sent ya. (Actually, the site offers a huge backlog of scanned articles, input by a fan, of course.)
https://www.messingaboutinboats.com/
