An Industry First - Captains and Crew Find Their Voice

November 19, 2009

The yachting industry’s first “user-generated magazine” hits the docks tomorrow. Dubbed Dockwalk Your Way, editors at Dockwalk magazine turned over their December issue entirely to their captains and crew readers. More than 150 submissions were received from all over the world, varying from stunning travel photography to gripping shipwreck stories contributed by veteran captains and job-seeking dockwalkers alike.

The growing popularity of community websites like Dockwalk.com that allow users to generate the content has changed traditional print media forever. Readers have found their voice in community magazines, calling attention to pertinent topics and conversation and engaging with the editors online. Dockwalk has embraced this change to the extreme by producing a magazine 100% dictated by its readers.

Dockwalk Your Way publishes the contributions of forty-two captains and crew and looks and feels different from the cover to the last page, having been completely redesigned to accommodate the style of articles submitted.

Highlights from the issue:

●  One captain is presented with the job offer of a lifetime, but can it be too good to be true?
●  An engineer's harrowing story of his rescue and recovery after being swept overboard on the Côte d’Azur.
●  A chef shares his passion for exploring local ingredients on his summer odyssey up the U.S. Eastern Seaboard.
●  See what happens when mate meets stewardess, they fall in love and decide to get married; can busy crew pull off a wedding between charters?
●  Read a deckhand’s struggle to keep his mouth shut in the face of overwhelming owne...err...odds
●  The fall of the economy has birthed an era of “extreme dockwalking.” Read one man’s desperate tale of “the unfortunates” who joined the industry amidst the economic apocalypse.

“When we launched the request for a reader-written issue last summer, we had no idea what to expect,” says Editor-in-chief Kate Lardy. “We were amazed at the number of crew who participated as well as their incredible talent. Their contributions truly make this December 2009 issue one-of-a-kind. Crew have found their unified voice in this issue and we cannot wait for the industry to pick up this must-read and find out what’s really on the minds of the crew.”