Colby Returning To Speedonthewater.com Offshore Racing Coverage Team
A multi-time award-winning veteran marine industry journalist, Eric Colby will cover the 2023 American Power Boat Association Offshore National Championship Series, the Union Internationale Motonautique Class 1 World Championship, the Race World Offshore Key West World Championships and the Offshore Powerboat Association Englewood Beach Waterfest World Championships in 2023. Colby covered the sport for this daily news site last year, and his return as a contributing editor to speedonthewater.com will delight passionate fans of the sport, as well as teams across multiple classes.
In addition to being an excellent reporter and writer, Speedonthewater.com contributing editor Eric Colby is a devoted father to his daughter, Makenna, and son, Blake.
In 2021, Colby’s thoroughly detailed, accurately reported stories went live either the day of or morning after the event that spawned them. They were accompanied, as they will be in 2023, by excellent images from speedonthewater.com chief photographer Pete Boden to produce the strongest real-time coverage in offshore powerboat racing history.
A former Powerboat magazine editor—he actually hired speedonthewater.com founder and co-publisher Matt Trulio as the magazine’s managing editor in 1993—Colby has long been a passionate, well-informed observer of the sport he covered during his Powerboat tenures. (He worked twice for the magazine). He even raced alongside Southern California’s Craig Archer in offshore racing’s now defunct A Class for V-bottoms.
“No marine writer knows the sport better than Eric and no one—other than maybe a few offshore racers—are more passionate about it,” Trulio said, then laughed. “Jason Johnson and I brought him on in 2022 to help lighten our own writing load on weekends. We thought he’d do a good job. He ended up doing a great one.
“Eric was my boss at Powerboat and I learned a ton from him, and not just about the high-performance pleasure-boating and offshore-racing worlds, which were new to me at the time,” he continued. “Eric was and is demanding when it comes to reporting and writing quality. Having him as my editor was a privilege, just as it is having him cover offshore racing for speedonthewater.com.”
Said Colby, “For 2023, I’m looking forward to seeing the expansion of Class 1, Super Cat, 450R Factory Stock and Super Stock, as well as the evolution of the sport itself.” Photo from the 2022 Race World Offshore World Championships in Key West, Fla., by Pete Boden copyright Shoot 2 Thrill Pix.
Tyler Miler, the owner and throttleman of Super Cat-class M CON team, which will field a Class 1 team in 2023, agreed.
“Eric did a fantastic job this past season covering offshore racing,” Miller explained. “His ability to take interviews and conversations from racers as soon as we get out of our boats and put them into great reads for all of the fan base is absolutely awesome. Eric was very diligent in capturing the moments even from afar and releasing must-read columns in record speed to offshore racing fans.”
Colby’s long career in marine industry journalism, which began in 1986, has landed him in key editorial positions at significant publications from Boating magazine to Soundings Trade Only. But he never lost his taste for the high-performance world.
“Last year was an opportunity to re-introduce myself to the sport and to connect with the competitors,” Colby said. “I had stayed in touch with guys like John Tomlinson, Gary Ballough and Mike Stancombe, and I’ve gotten to know Grant Bruggemann, Tyler Miller and Reese Langheim.
“For 2023, I’m looking forward to seeing the expansion of Class 1, Super Cat, 450R Factory Stock and Super Stock, as well as the evolution of the sport itself,” he continued. “For example, I think the Saturday qualifying was a great idea that was well received by the fans and competitors alike. I would also like to be able to tell the stories behind some of the teams to help the fans get to know them better.”
Editor’s note: Jason Johnson—like Eric Colby—is a former editor-in-chief of Powerboat magazine.
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