Issue three of Boat Magazine finds us staying docked in London. We thought long and hard about this decision as our nickname is a ‘nomadic publication’ that moves base for each issue to different complicated cities, ones with big stories to tell. But we didn’t feel right about focusing again on a city abroad when our very home has a plethora of incredible stories to tell and people who never get the mic. We thought this year, the year of the Olympics, a few months on from the riots, steeped in economic problems with more questions than answers, London deserves some attention – just an entirely different kind.


Make no mistake, though we won’t be moving our studio to a different city this will be, without a doubt, the most difficult issue we’ve put our hands to yet. London has no shortage of media coverage, the media lives here, hundreds of books have been written about here, a Google search on ‘London’ returns 335 million results. It’s easy to learn about this city and at first glance it’s the last city that needs a Boat Magazine issue dedicated to it. But living here and working here we hear new stories and learn about different people all the time who deserve some limelight. The news is an onslaught of doom and gloom, and yet we hear about incredible, positive things happening all the time. That’s why we’re staying docked right here in our home the Big Smoke.


As most of our contributors for this issue live here, we won’t have to cram everyone into a rented house – our designer, Luke, and photographer, Chez, won’t have to share a bed this time. And I’m sure they’ll miss the early morning planning breakfasts over porridge (it’s cheap!) and lots of strong coffee. But we’ll be keeping everyone looped in by daily blog posts right here. Follow our progress and learn a bit more about how we’re putting this issue together. We’ve got some tricks up our sleeve that we’re bursting to share, we’ve got a couple of my heroes writing for us and some top-class photographers working on stories. Needless to say we’re pretty stoked.


Illustrators and Film-makers, watch this space. Over the next few weeks we’ll be announce two submission events with some pretty special partners.