50 Years On

t was the winter of 1969-70, and up in snowy Boston a visionary publisher named Bernie Goldhirsh and his small team were putting the finishing touches to the first issue of a new magazine called . A couple of years earlier Goldhirsh, noting the increasing popularity of sailing, had started the , an annual compendium of “sailboats, sailboat equipment, sailing books.” His company, the Institute for the Advancement of Sailing, included in each copy a questionnaire asking about readers’ sailing experience and interests. The replies were distilled into the mission statement for the new monthly magazine, while the became the annual buyers guide we publish to this day.