Feature in Practical Boat Owner!

Back in December, the somewhat infamous Schnebby of these here waters (Miley’s Eberspacher) decided to break down rather spectacularly right at the beginning of those two weeks of snow and misery.

Cue a thread on the YBW.com Practical Boat Owner forums desperately seeking help. The thread soon ran to nine pages as sailors from all over the country tried to help me and Alex fix Schnebby.

Practical Boat Owner magazine

Eventually, we managed to fix him; but despite their help, none of the suggestions from the forumites provided the winning fix…

I wrote a short pitch to the editor of Practical Boat Owner magazine proposing a feature on how we fixed Schnebbydrawing on the tales of human kindness from the forum thread, and eventually revealing the ultimate fix.

Editor Sarah Norbury requested a more detailed synopsis which I wrote and sent to her the next day. She accepted my proposal and I was commissioned to write a 2,000 word feature, plus photos, all about our Schnebby woes.

Friends and family were chuffed for me to have gained this commission; Alex wasn’t very happy at all. It meant she’d have to take Schnebby apart again so we could take photos of the whole process. Whoops! Thanks to Jeremy from PhotoViva.co.uk - marine photography specialist - for all of the photos that will appear in the article.

A couple of weeks later I emailed Sarah with my finished copy and was rather nervous to hear her feedback on it. Initially she emailed me on Friday saying she’d read it over the weekend and get back to me on Monday - I was preparing myself for a weekend of nail-biting when Sarah emailed me again with the following:

“It’s a really good read, very well written, gripping and entertaining, quite an achievement for an article about mending a heater.”

Cue an awesome weekend!

Want to see for yourself how I made an article about mending a heater quite so enthralling?

It’s been fast-forwarded for publication in the April issue of Practical Boat Owner, which will be out in March. Grab a copy and let me know what you think - not forgetting, it might fix your Schnebby woes too…