AUTHORS GUIDELINES

Blue Water Sailing

Author Guidelines

We accept articles in Word format, either on CD/DVDs or via e-mail as attachments. Please do not embed photos in the Word article; send photos separately. We prefer hi-resolution digital images sent on CDs but can accept images via e-mail or on our ftp site.

Because we plan the magazine many months in advance, it is helpful to query us with story ideas prior to sending a completed article. Send articles, questions or queries to Valerie Meffert at valerie@bwsailing.com.

Here are the article categories we are looking for:

DISPATCHES
We run five or six short Dispatches in each issue. These can be short first-person accounts, with photos, or short news and notes that will be useful and interesting to other cruisers. We split the section into Cruising Dispatches and Event Dispatches. Length 300 to 1,000 words.

LIVING ABOARD
These are personal stories about life aboard a boat with family, friends and new friends. We hope to offer readers a “slice of life” aboard a boat out cruising or entered in a rally or offshore event. Articles need not be “how to” but we enjoy having each story pass on something real and useful if possible. 1,000 to 1,500 words.

SEAMANSHIP
How-to articles by experienced sailors on any and all aspects of seamanship and boat handling. These articles work well if they can be enlivened with real anecdotes from the author’s sailing career. Photos or illustrations really help. 1,000 to 1,500 words.

PRACTICAL PASSAGEMAKER
This section of the magazine is devoted to how things work or don’t work aboard a cruising or offshore sailboat and how we can make life easier and safer. Personal stories of repairs, renovations, installations etc. that will interest cruising boat owners work best. 750 to 1,500 words.

OFFSHORE NAVIGATOR
We like to run articles by experienced cruisers and electronics experts in this section. The focus of these articles is to help readers understand and better use modern navigation and communications technology. Personal experience with technology is welcome. 750 to 1,500 words.

ENERGY AFLOAT
These articles offer solutions to common onboard energy and electrical problems and range from simple to complex energy generating, storage and monitoring systems. 750 to 1,500 words.

CLASSIC PASSAGES
These feature articles usually are tales from the high seas of passages along the coastlines, across oceans or on well-known bodies of water. Our hope is to give our readers really good sailing yarns that also inform them about exotic lands, famous seas and the world’s weather patterns and systems. Sailed over the horizon lately? Why not tell us about it? 1,000 to 2,000 words.

DESTINATIONS
Destination articles focus in on great and interesting cruising grounds from near and far, whether it be San Francisco Bay or Botany Bay. We want to offer readers good first-person stories about sailing to a new place, encountering a new land, meeting new people and learning new things. Sidebars on local knowledge, resources, etc., are helpful. Cruising can be all about discovery. Share cruising discoveries with us. 1,000 to 2,000 words.

BLUE HORIZONS
Every month the last page of the magazine is devoted to a great anchorage or harbor somewhere out there in the world that a reader has found and come to love. Tell us about your favorite anchorage and send along a hi-res photo or two of it, of your boat at anchor and of yourselves. 400 to 500 words.