Fifty-five years in the marine industry. Sixty years as a fisherman, a hunter, a boater. I've written the stories other people wanted told. Now I'm telling them the way I think they need to be told.
This is Randy Vance, off the leash, at Dock51.
The name's not an accident. Out in the New Mexico desert, there's a place where people go looking for what's really going on behind the official story. That's us, except our skunkworks is the marine industry — and the secrets we're after aren't extraterrestrial, they're sitting on dealer lots and factory floors. Our job is to find out what makes the best boats actually the best, and just as important, to tell you where they fall short. Every boat has a flaw. The marine media that depends on manufacturer ad dollars can't always tell you what it is. We can.
That's the whole pitch, really. No advertiser gets veto power over what we publish. When our take on a boat or a piece of gear conflicts with what the company selling it wants you to hear, you'll get both — our position and theirs — side by side. And let me add, in boats, there are often no rights or wrongs, just choices. If the boat leans one way and you lean another, that's what's right for you. What's wrong for you? Could very well be the next boater's perfect place. That's not a gimmick. It's the only way I know to do this job honestly after forty years of watching it done, sometimes, otherwise.
Boats and gear are the heart of it, but not the whole of it. We'll cover boating safety, because too many people learn those lessons the hard way. We'll get into the issues that affect whether you can actually use the water you've paid your taxes to access — politics included, whether that's comfortable or not. And we'll bring in some of the sharpest marine writers working today, because this industry has real talent that deserves a platform without a sales department standing over its shoulder.
We're starting online. Quick, adjustable, entertaining — stories built for how you actually read, not how a print schedule says you should. Whether Dock51 ever ends up in your hands as a printed page depends on you. If enough of you want it, we'll find a way. For now, the goal is to get you something sharp, something true, and something worth your time, fast.
We're also putting this on video — Dock51 has its own YouTube channel, and what we can't say as well in print, we'll show you there. Subscribe, comment, argue with us. That's part of the deal too.
This only works if you talk back. Tell us what you want covered. Tell us when we got something wrong. Tell us when we got it right, too — that helps more than you'd think. I've spent forty years writing for an industry. Now I'm writing for you.
Welcome aboard.
— Randy Vance