Relax. I’ll spare you the “from the dawn of time” speech and not dive too far, but to appreciate our humble beginnings I have to go back to at least 1990. That was the year our Houseboat magazine started after our founder, Darryl Harris, realized there wasn’t an existing magazine covering his new houseboating hobby. At that time our young publishing company was covering potatoes, sugar beets and other agricultural topics, so jumping into boating was a big leap to say the least.
Despite some serious doubts from our own office, Houseboat magazine was launched that year and was an instant success. We started spending more time out on the water covering houseboats and we began noticing there was another type of boat that probably deserved a little attention as well. After seeing so many pontoon boats around all these houseboats, in 1995 Mr. Harris was anxious to start a pontoon magazine next. His logic once again was because there wasn’t an existing publication dedicated just for these specific boats, we should start one.
Now anyone who has been out on a pontoon recently would have zero hesitation about starting a magazine that focuses only on pontoon boats. After all, these crafts have been the best-selling boat in the industry for a dozen or more years as luxurious comfort and high-end performance have merged beautifully to increase the popularity of pontoons.
However, in 1995 pontoons weren’t exactly what they are today, to put it mildly. Not even close if we’re being completely honest. The board of directors at Harris Publishing were rumored to be a little upset at the proposed idea of a pontoon publication, and felt the owner was just throwing money away with his latest idea for a magazine.
In a compromise, the decision was made to add deck boats to the magazine’s focus since both are considered great family-style boats.
For awhile the deck boat side seemed to carry the magazine and there was even some talk about hiding the word “pontoon” and changing our name to “Toons & Decks” (sigh), but instead we went by our initials and referred to ourselves as PDB magazine for a few years.
Then it seemed like overnight things drastically changed. Suddenly pontoons got hot and the word “pontoon” became a positive buzzword and here we are today. But despite the favorable turn for pontoons, we haven’t forgotten our roots and the pairing decision we made nearly 30 years ago. We are and always will be Pontoon & Deck Boat magazine and now you know why. Clearly everyone can see this pairing is as common as turkey and Thanksgiving.
