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If you’re a sportfishing
enthusiast, an admirer of big sportfishing boats, or both, you know what
this issue of PMY is all about. March means sportfishing, and
that means that in the pages that follow, you’ll find fishing stories
and features on the newest, biggest, fastest, most glamorous sportfishermen
on the planet.
And we don’t
just cover them, we test them. Better yet, we work very hard at testing
them before anyone else. Look on this or any PMY cover, and you’ll
see a list of “Exclusives” in the lower right-hand corner,
boats that are appearing here first—usually well before any other
U.S. publication gets around to them.
Being a competitive
lot, we take this exclusivity thing seriously. This month you’ll
find five tests of brand-new sportfishermen, four of which are exclusives.
(We also broke the story on Viking’s new 74, but to be first we
had to publish it in December.) Last March we covered seven sportfishermen,
three of which were exclusives. To be honest, we’re a little obsessive
about beating other boating magazines to the punch. In 2004 we tested
a total of 54 boats, of which nearly half—26—were exclusives.
And we intend to beat that mark in 2005.
But being on a boat
before other magazines is about more than just slaking our thirst to be
first. It’s about better serving you, our reader. Let’s face
it: No one cares about old news. Whether the subject is boats, cars, or
current events, readers want publications that give them information first.
In the field of powerboats over 30 feet, we do that better than anyone,
which is why nearly half of PMY readers—62,000 of you—don’t
read any other boating publication. You don’t need to.
But I have to admit,
when it comes to getting on boats before anyone else, PMY has
an unfair advantage. It’s called editors. Our staff of eight full-time
writers is larger than any other marine publication’s, plus we have
four contributing editors, including a professor of marine architecture,
the best electronics writer in the business, and the best charter editor
as well.
A big part of their
job is testing boats—really testing boats. Anyone can read gph off
a display and speed off a GPS. We do that, plus take running angles, acceleration
times, and decibel readings, to give you what we believe is the most complete
performance picture available anywhere. Compare our spec box to any other
magazine’s, and you’ll immediately see the difference. It’s
because we take boat testing so seriously that so many builders want to
give us their boats first. (Another reason is that we bug the hell out
of them.)
At PMY, we
know that ultimately it’s the story that counts—getting it
right and getting it first. And, with us, the story is boats—powerboats,
not sailboats, not food, and not so-called luxury goods. Yes, we still
get beat to a new powerboat every now and again, which drives us nuts.
After all, we set a high standard: We want every new boat in our size
range to appear first in the pages of PMY, and you can bet that
we won’t rest until they all do.
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