This is a short summary of some magazines available. It may seem like a lot of magazines. I'd be surprised if anyone reads all of them regularly. I subscribe to a couple of magazines and pick up others on occasion.
Sail magazine has interesting articles on voyages, short-term cruises and sails on local lakes. It has articles on maintenance, sailing trips and errors, and reviews of new boats. The reviews of new boats may depress you if, like me, you are not rich. The definition of rich here is someone with more money than I have.
You can get the impression from the reviews in magazines that you can forget about sailing unless you can afford to drop several hundred thousand dollars on a new boat. Fortunately that's not true. Think of these reviews as being like the reviews in Car and Driver. It's fun to read about someone driving a $150,000 car but I do not walk because I can't afford a Ferrari. Instead, I have a Mustang GT. Most of the sailboat reviews are the same way. You probably can't afford a $300,000 sailboat but it can be interesting to read about them. If you don't think that the reviews are interesting, don't read them. In any case, you can spend far less on sailboats that are quite capable of sailing around the world, let alone a lake.
Cruising World is a magazine that we got free after completing a sailing course and we have kept up the subscription. Cruising World seems similar to Sail with fewer how-to articles and more articles about cruising. Fair enough given the title. It can be fun. Among other articles, they have a continuing series of articles by Fatty Goodlander and his wife Carolyn about sailing around the world. Many of the pieces are about cruising and people's exploits. This can be sort of Walter-Mittyish, but it also can help you learn what to do and what not to do.
Sailing World covers racing. We subscribed for a year. While it was fun to read, I don't race and don't want to. (Work is competitive and I am Type A; I don't need to find a way to compete that would cost me money.) Its coverage of races is quite interesting. It has sections on rules and their interpretation. Its coverage of the America's Cup was excellent, and this excellence carries over to other races.
I have picked up Latitudes and Attitudes at a few airports. It is published in California and has far more articles on the West Coast than the other magazines. This magazine also has more more of a party atmosphere than the others. This probably is related to the name and the relationship to the Buffet song. Besides that, the publisher is an ex-biker named Bob Bitchin who seems to be something of a cult figure. It is fun to read and has interesting stories about sailing on the West Coast, Mexico and the Pacific.
Sailing is an oversized format magazine with spectacular pictures. I have picked up this magazine at magazine racks. Besides the pictures, the reviews by Robert H. Perry – a well-known sailboat designer – are the most distinctive aspect of this magazine from my point of view. The magazine includes interesting articles about sailing in various parts of the world. Its inclusion of articles about sailing the Great Lakes is one big difference between this magazine and most of the others.
I have bought Sailing World at a few airports. This magazine also has an oversized format that makes it possible to have stunning pictures. For example, there is an article in one issue with spectacular pictures about sailing around Ireland.
Yachting Monthly and Yachting World are available in Europe, especially the U.K. and Ireland. I buy these magazines when I travel to Europe. Both of these magazines are very interesting with informative reviews of boats and new equipment, articles about sailors and their exploits and articles about sailing trips in Europe. Yachting Monthly is more centered on the U.K. and Yachting World is more about areas around the whole world. I like these magazines a lot, even though I have no reason to think that I will be sailing outside the U.S. or the Caribbean any time soon.
With two exceptions, all of the sailing magazines seem to have a bias toward reviews of the sailing equivalents of Ferraris and Rolls Royces.
One of the exceptions is Practical Sailor. Practical Sailor is quite practical. Much of it may seem irrelevant to you at first. Practical Sailor is the Consumer Reports of sailing and it includes long-term articles about the durability of marine paints structured quite similar to Consumer Reports' review of household deck stains. Someday this will matter and you may find it interesting even before you buy a boat. I do. I'm not sure what that says about me, but I'll leave that aside.
You may want to read Practical Sailor while you're thinking about what boat to buy in part because it includes reviews of new and used boats. The new boats reviewed tend to be mainstream production boats. The used boats are all over the map. The reviews tend to be technical and, if you're like me, they are hard to understand at first because nautical terms are used without explanation. I find them pretty clear now, but it has taken a while.
Nautical terms is a nice way of saying sailing jargon. After a while with other reading, the terms become more comprehensible.
Good Old Boat is another magazine that includes a lot of information on affordable boats. Good Old Boat focuses on what the name suggests: good old boats. These tend to be less expensive than newer boats. Like good old cars, they also tend to be higher maintenance. The articles are very informative about older boats and, after reading this magazine for a while, you will begin to get the idea that you don't have to sell your house and live on the sailboat or else be satisfied with a windsurfer.
The tone of some articles is a little disparaging about nice, new boats, an attitude that I don't get. Just because I can't afford a Lamboghini doesn't mean it's not a great car.
Each issue includes at least one article on a particular older boat. Generally one of these articles is followed by a short, clear evaluation of the boat by Ted Brewer – a well-known sailboat designer. His evaluation also includes a comparison of the spotlighted boat to other similar boats, which is really helpful.
Good Old Boat is published in Minnesota and includes articles about sailing in the upper Midwest. This is a distinguishing feature of this magazine and Sailing.