good riddence....that place has just been a fester of hostility and drama for the past year.....it was never going to recover....bummer about the mag...oh well, it means something better will come along (and im not talkin about PB)

i printed all 130 posts of the raspberry thread to PDF.....thats the only useful shit i needed from that site.

Interesting how they so misjudged how their actions would be perceived by the "congregation."    I think the magazine would have never the "new" economy anyway.  It was unbelievely ironic that they saw themselves as "The Only blah blah blah that matters."   No one could tell the editorial board that a Hot Boat is a small lightweight rig basically designed for smooth water lakes, not 32+ feet of twin engined, outdrive hangin' cabin cruiser.   Not to mention they never tested a boat they didn't drool over, no editorial balls or integrity whatsoever.
Us jet guys got one page of Q&A and maybe a page or two of some lucky reader's ride. Woo Fn Hooo!

And Brad I agree the drama was way over the top and lots of adults acting high school, but a lot of people felt like HB.com was kinda like "home".   You always spent time there or the day wasn't complete.   Just like the folks here hopefully feel about SCJB. 
I'm just saying its a really unprofessional way to close out a bizness that literally thousands of people spent money on for many, many years.   And Chris didn't deserve any of it and Kharma from doing your brother dirty should be huge.

 Have Hot boat dating back to 1985 and actually have/had 2 subsciptions for the past couple of years. One went to work and the other to the house. Even though I didn't care for much of what was in the mag, I still read up on the few pages that interested me. Kind of like going to the L.A. Boat Show. I have gone just about ever year since the early 80's, but most of the boats just dont do anything for me. Its hard to find anything under 24' in the custom booth's anymore.
I scaned a couple of covers from 85/86. Back then it was half hot boats and the rest were jet ski/ tournament boats and offshore boats. Just looked in the back and there are 11 pages of reference guide (business card size ads), plus all of the advertising amongst the stories, they had to be making some money back then.
I'm such a geek, I even have Powerboat from 1979-1992, then they went all offshore on me.
I wont miss the current Hot Boat as written, but there sure does seem to be a void for us who enjoy the smaller boats.