Publishing a Downeaster book, to detail design, maintenance, and cruising photos General Forum Forums

May 2026:

I am working towards creation of a Downeaster Yachts book, for eventual physical sale.   There is no profit motive here, it is out of interest in our uniquely stylish sailboats.  There are a few hundred boats, no such intensive book project would ever return any profit.  This is a multi-year project for me, and anyone who wants to submit media.  

The internet is not what it seems.  Internet blogs or forums are very difficult to maintain due to AI spammers.  Entire blog companies have sold off and closed -- like the huge yahoo groups, all of the content was vaporized.  Great blogs were created by individuals in years past, then they disappear, even from the Internet Archive.  This forum disappeared for some time and now is back up.  Boats change hands and the new owners (including myself of course) need to scour various random sources to find relevant information.  Some forums are behind corrupt walled gardens (like Meta's Facebook).  

Of course I might be a bit biased towards DE32, since I have one, but, the Downeaster book will include all, DE32, DE38, DE45's.

Publishing a real book, yes, how retro.  Yet, can also be more permanent (print and PDF), and also a large physical format for great photo spreads.  

I am collecting sources from anyone who wants to contribute photos or articles.  Especially detailed refit photos.  I already have a thousand archived photos of various Downeasters, collected over the past decade+.

Hopefully this book project can be granted permission to quote postings from this forum.  Send me the link to your blogs, or others.   Send me a zip file or the database file of an entire web site, I will extract the media.  Old survey documents are a great source of info.  Old receipts from engine maintenance showing part replacement schedules.  etc, etc.  I will include my own certified marine surveys in the book.

I have the original Universal Diesel warrantee card as installed in S/V Oasis (built in 1979) from the launch in 1981, signed by the first owner.  That's pretty cool.  Hmm, is that warrantee card still valid?

One of my goals is to also include the design lines in the book.  Perhaps gaining rights to republish a spread of the original drawings.

First, I might work at republishing a new "original" Downeaster sales brochure, freshened up for 2027 (i.e. for next year), and send these out to current owners, for those interested.  All of the Downeasters were manufactured in Santa Ana, California.  Not too far from where I lived.  Yet all of that boatbuilding infrastructure is essentially gone now.  How long were the Downeasters supposed to last, 20 years?  It might turn out that the thick fiberglass will last for over 200 years.

The link to this project is my website 88proof.com/sail which also has my direct email info.  That link should be valid for the next several years at least. Or search the web for "jonathan oasis sailing".