Where's Ultra?
I enjoy your magazine. Your test results are always detailed and consistent. I have noticed in the last year that Ultra Custom Boats has not appeared in your magazine. What gives?

Are they not entering your testing roundups? Have they offered to put boats through your testing? Are you all mad at each other? I think (Ultra owner) John West puts out some beautiful boats, and hope to see something by him in your pages soon.

Jeff Austin
Smithville, Mo.

Best Reason For Boating
To the authors of "Tone it Down" and "Too Risqué" (Letters, May 2007, Page 20), I've grown up in the aviation community and the boating community, and I made aviation my job and boating my passion many years ago for three good reasons.

1. It is too tough to ski or tube behind an airplane.
2. You can have liquid libation while boating (please boat responsibly).
3. I've never seen a bodacious bikini babe at the airport.

I've stopped enjoying the airport because of reason No. 3 and will not enjoy your magazine as much if the advertisers remove the best reason for boating!

Glynn Scruggs
Belleville, Mich.

Back On Board
I "cut my teeth" on performance boating as a teenager growing up in Miami in the late '60s and early '70s when I couldn't wait for another edition of Powerboat magazine to hit the newsstands! I recently picked up a copy of your magazine in the Orlando International Airport and it brought back many fond memories, so much so that I just renewed my subscription!

Can you tell me the whereabouts and status of one of my favorite race boats? She was an inboard flat-bottom circle boat (I don't remember which class) named Karen and you ran a feature article on her exploits sometime during the mid-1970s as I recall.

Rob Bee
Winter Garden, Fla.

Concerned Boater
Have you heard what's happening at Lake Berryessa in California? The Sierra Club is on the move. Yes, they have an agenda to eliminate powerboats at this longtime powerboat-friendly lake. You know, for the kayakers.

They already have partially achieved their goal by persuading the Feds to prevent powerboats from entering the no-wake zone by the big island (about 200 acres).

This is where we would swim and have lunch. Not anymore. It's only the beginning of what I predict will be the end of our sport. Please research what I have said and do what you can. It could be a really good story. No, it will be a very good story.

Tom Brown
Dublin, Calif.

Parting Ways
Apparently it's time for us to part company. I have been a continual subscriber since early 1974 when the issues were printed in black and white only. I also was a powerboater during that time. For the most part, I have enjoyed every one of the issues. Your magazines were coffee table material for me, my family and my friends.

Not anymore. The Cigarette boat ads are thinly veiled pornography, and Shogren's nearly nude model ads aren't too far behind. Ads like these were never published under the Nordskog family's management, nor should they be today.

I will especially miss Bob Teague's column with his matchless wisdom and insight, as well as his remarkable breadth of marine knowledge. But I will no longer expose my children and grandchildren to your offensive ads. Please cancel my subscription immediately, and refund the balance.

Jim Schantz
Luxemburg, Wash.

Cabin Question
I just wanted to say, great magazine. I love the boat evaluations. I wish I would have read your magazine before I purchased my first powerboat. One thing I would like you to add is how watertight the cabins are. My boat was made in Arizona where they have little rain, but in Minnesota we have rain. A leaking cabin takes the fun out of boating if after every rain you to have to suck water out of your cabin.

Jeren Hamlin
Newport, Minn.