Boating Sector News vs Partnerships in Marketing

WALKING THE WALK ... ON DECK

The Rudder Magazine - A Potpourri of Boating News, Information, and Literary Tidbits- Circa 1940s and 1950s

Now for a brief foray into a personal discussion. In a recent edition of Loose Cannon, Peter Swanson mentioned me with some very kind words. He and I have known each other and cooperated on-and-off for about ten years now. It was he who originally introduced me to Substack — where we’ve both been seeking, each in our own way, to establish an enclave of “serious” boating sector writing. Consequently, I am taking this opportunity to, so to speak, put the deck shoe on the other foot.

For the record (and, of course, FWIW), Peter and I first met when he was EIC at Passagemaker magazine and looking for someone to cover the capsizing at launch of the new Northern Marine $10 million, 90-foot expedition yacht, "Baden", in Anacortes, WA in 2014. The referral came through Richard Thiel who was the long-time EIC of Power and Motoryacht Magazine — and with and for whom I had worked many years before, when I was the Senior Editor at PMY. My meet up with Swanson and the course of the initial freelance assignment from him illustrate almost perfectly what he's talking about when he mentions there being a line between "boating news" and what's become known in the boating press as "partnerships in marketing".

Anyway, the yacht Baden had been launched to a lot of fanfare and ... promptly capsized. Fortunately, without serious injury to anyone or loss of life. Just a $10 million boatbuilding project turned to trash in a couple of minutes. I agreed to cover the story for Passagemaker and Swanson, and immediately set out to gather all the available data and interview as many of the principals of the saga as possible.

The facts of the situation were far from pretty, and about half way through the work, it became evident to me that telling the story factually would very likely help sink the company — which was definitely not a way for a boating sector magazine to win friends or influence people (read "advertisers") who, frankly, are the commercial lifeblood of such publications. So, I called Peter to tell him that I was stalled because I could not see how to frame the story honestly in any way that would not appear critical of what might go down in history as a Keystone Cops edition of yacht building activity. (You can still read the resulting final piece at: https://www.passagemaker.com/web-extras/disaster-in-anacortes-videoweb-extra.)

Peter's answer was to not concern myself with the "political" ramifications of the story, but to write it in accord with my best considered opinion of what transpired and the probable causes — and let the chips fall as they might. He wanted the real story, at least, as much of it as I could dig out, never mind the niceties of trying to show everyone in the best possible light. Reassured, I completed the research and the interviews and wrote the article which, by the way, pretty accurately anticipated the NTSB report that was not completed and published until more than a year later.

So what's the point here? That Peter Swanson not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. And that, with Loose Cannon, he brings interesting boating sector news to the conversation, leavened with a generous measure of humor and, at least, a tip of his cap to the kind of literary merit we used to see pre-1960 in The Rudder magazine. I'm a paid subscriber to Loose Cannon, and if you are a serious member of the boating/yachting sub-culture, you should consider becoming one, as well. Fair winds and safe harbors!

— Phil Friedman

Copyright © 2024 by Phil Friedman and Port Royal Group — All Rights Reserved