The New Guys
Other than the fact that they both
started sailing at the ripe old age of 4, in some ways the two sailors
couldn't be more different. One cut his teeth aboard Turnabouts
on a Maine lake before discovering the joys of cruising during family
charters on Long Island Sound, off Rhode Island, and along the coast of
Florida. Far away, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, the other
sailor's seagoing fire was stoked by adventures on his dad's
lateen-rigged inflatable and 27-foot homebuilt catamaran, on which his
family ventured into the Adriatic and roamed among the Kornati islands
between the old-world ports of Venice and Dubrovnik, enjoying the magic
of traveling under sail.
Their subsequent journeys took equally divergent paths, but David W.
Shaw and Dieter Loibner, the Yank and the Austrian, have now found
common ground as the newest associate editors to join the staff of Cruising World. With their shared love of boats, words, and water, we're very pleased they're here.
Though David earned a degree in magazine journalism from the Newhouse
School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, for much of his
professional life his journey as a writer has been devoted to the art
and craft of authoring books, and a prolific trip it's been. Among his
several works of narrative nonfiction are Flying Cloud, whose protagonist is the female navigator of America's most famous clipper ship; The Sea Shall Embrace Them, which recounts the sinking of the steamship Arctic in 1854; America's Victory, a stirring onboard account of the first America's Cup race in 1851; and Sea Wolf of the Confederacy, the Civil War tale of a historic Confederate raid on New England in 1863.
Working as a writer from his base in New Jersey also gave David time to
pursue his passion for sailing, which he did with relish after
purchasing his first boat, the Bristol 24 Elizabeth,
in the early 1990s. For the next several years, he spent summers
rambling about the major waterways of the Northeast: from Jersey's
Manasquan Inlet to Mount Desert, Maine, and to Lake Ontario and the
Thousand Islands via the Hudson River-Erie Canal link. These days,
David skippers Sonata, a
"classic plastic" 1981 Pearson 36 cutter that he delivered from Maine
to her new home on Rhode Island's Sakonnet River soon after taking his
post with CW.
Dieter's educational background is decidedly continental: He holds a
Ph.D. in political science and journalism from Austria's University of
Vienna. Fittingly, it's his talent and versatility as a journalist that
originally caught our eye. For nearly two decades, Dieter has written
for sailing publications all over the world covering nearly ever facet
of the yachting scene: cruising, racing, boat tests, restoration, the
America's Cup, and the Olympic Games. He, too, is a book author, having
recently written The Folkboat Story,
the definitive study of one of his favorite all-time designs. And just
prior to joining our team, he worked at West Marine, where he wrote the
West Advisors for the company's ubiquitous catalogs.
Like most of us here, when Dieter's not writing about sailing, he's
generally out doing it. He's an accomplished racing sailor who's
competed internationally aboard Finns and Star boats, with plenty of
additional experience on dinghies, beach catamarans, and small
keelboats. His cruising résumé includes stints in the Mediterranean and
down the trades through the Leeward Islands. With an eclectic sailing
background, an eye for detail, and plenty of hands-on technical
expertise, he brings a new dimension to our masthead.
I'm biased, of course, but I sincerely believe I have the honor of
working with the best staff of any magazine in the marine field. With
the addition of David and Dieter, we're pleased to have added two more
outstanding sailors, writers, and journalists. Come to think of it,
maybe they aren't so different after all. In fact, you could say our
newest editors are cut from the same cloth. Sailcloth, that is.
