Tow Boat Confidential: Brett Becker Intro
New column promises the scoop on wakeboard and ski boat scene.
January 14, 2008
Brett Becker, a freelance writer and photographer who has covered the marine industry for more than 10 years, will handle the wakeboard/ski boat market. The former editor of Powerboat and Boating Life magazines, Becker regularly writes and shoots for Performance Racing Industry and Powerboat magazines.
Please Allow me to Introduce Myself
Do something long enough and sooner or later someone might think you're proficient at it. Well, I can't say whether I'm any good at covering the marine industry, but I have been doing it for 10 years, and that experience should come in handy-one would hope-as I cover the ski boat market for Boats.com.
I began covering the marine industry for World Publications in Winter Park, Fla., as managing editor for Boating Life magazine. Because of my background as a gearhead and engine geek, I also was part of the team dedicated to performance-testing ski boats for WaterSki magazine. During my three years at World, I tested probably every ski boat on the market at least once. I also tested lots of other kinds of boats for Boating Life magazine. That duty also extended to testing the performance of-of all things-pontoon boats, which seemed a bit daft to me.
So when I landed an editorial gig at Powerboat magazine, I packed up and moved to Ventura, Calif. Before long, I was promoted to be the big-swingin'-dick editor, a position I held for five years. During that time, we must have tested around 400 go-fast boats. At that point, I guess a midlife crisis set in, so I moved back to Florida, bought a sports car, and went to graduate school.
Now I'm back in Ventura scratching out a living as a freelancer, and the same guy who tapped me for the job at Powerboat said he was putting together a team of writers to cover the marine industry for Boats.com. So here we are.
From this column, you can expect the kind of perspective that comes from 10 years spent covering the marine industry. You can expect irreverence from time to time. You can expect news and stories relevant to the ski boat market, and disparaging humor when appropriate. I hope you'll find this column as useful as it is entertaining, but don't expect it. That might be asking too much.
