From the Publisher on the Log Celebrating 50 Years

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA—From offshore races in Mexico to his first job in the newspaper business at the Long Beach Press-Telegram in college, the Log publisher Duncan McIntosh has many memories that led to his interest in publishing the bi-monthly boating, fishing, and sailing newspaper. McIntosh purchased the newspaper in 2004 and is now steering the Log into its 50^th year. He gave most of the credit for what the paper is today to Lou Gerlinger, who published the Log from 1975 to 1990.

“The person I give credit to for founding the Log, he was the second owner, and that was Lou Gerlinger and they used to meet once a week or once every other week at the restaurant on… Shelter Island in San Diego and they had this one table that was the Log,” said McIntosh. “They were always at the one booth in the back of the restaurant and they would publish the Log out of this booth and I always thought that was so cool… and I give him credit for having been the founder because he gave it some actual editorial guidelines and the culture that it needed to be a successful publication writing about boating as a news item in Southern California.”

After selling the paper, Gerlinger continued to write occasional articles for the Log under the alias Log News Service up until his death on April 9, 2020. He was 98 years old.

McIntosh said Gerlinger set the tone of the paper as a news publication, something he has tried to continue in his tenure at the helm.

“I think Lou Gerlinger instilled in us a discipline that you cover boating just like a newspaper and it is news,” said McIntosh. “That was something that was easy to understand and we came at from the same standpoint.”

He said he liked what Gerlinger was doing with the paper so much he briefly published a rivalry paper called Waterfront and when the opportunity to become publisher of the Log came in 2004, he took it.

“Just tried to take what he was doing and do a good job with it,” said McIntosh.

The Log staff looks forward to continuing to cover top boating, fishing, and waterfront issues in Southern California as well as the events and aspects that make the sailing and boating lifestyle so enjoyable.

“Maintain the standard that he set forth to take it seriously, by the same token boating should be fun and we don’t want to lose sight of that,” said McIntosh.