BIG BOOK OF BOATS
Today I know what it feels like to be both Santa Claus and the excited five-year-old listening for a magical sleigh on Christmas Eve. Very shortly, that sleigh, disguised as a soot-encrusted delivery van with a not-so-jolly-old-soul driver, will unceremoniously plonk a dented, brown cardboard box in my office.
I won’t get to sneak off and open this gift in private, oh no. The whole team of Trade-a-Boat elves will gather, box cutters drawn in a bloody, thirsty frenzy of gift unwrapping bedlam. The smell of freshly printed magazines is like bonito blood to gummy sharks for our lot, although this time I suspect the overwhelming aroma will be sweat, such is the effort that has gone into producing the all-new 450-page Complete Book of Boats tome.
And a complete book of boats it is. No longer do we separate the gin palace from the honest tinnie and the wind thief from the pocket battle wagon in two independent offerings. Our commitment to you, the loyal Trade-a-Boat and our new former TrailerBoat readers, is that if it floats, we’ll find it, photograph it and feature it. We really do want to make Trade-a-Boat, the gift that keeps on giving. That’s why it’s so bleeding long.
By Thursday the 13th of February the Complete Book of Boats will be at a newsagent near you. I do hope you relish reading it as much as we enjoyed building it.
— Jeff Strang, Editor
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P.S. They say the art of great management is the ability to hog all the credit, while transferring all the blame. Unfortunately, in my case, I couldn’t design my way out of an open door. The beautiful boat book you will find owes its birth to the team of artists and assistant editors you will see in the credit panel hereabouts. Being more specific is unnecessary, you know who you are and please know you have my thanks.