Martin Cox, Publisher MaritimeMatters
The Port of Southampton provided an early inspiration for maritime investigation. Currently, based in Los Angeles, Cox works as a photographer, writer and publisher of MaritimeMatters.
He founded MaritimeMatters.com in 1996 and launched the one page site. Initially articulated his fascination with maritime topics, specifically ocean liners that he witnessed and researched in Southampton. By 1999 he been introduced to Peter Knego who was doing stellar work in the maritime history field. He invited Peter to contribute to the site, to elevate his writing to a wider audience. Cox and Knego traveled together exploring liners of the world while Cox began to expand MaritimeMatters as platform to research contemporary and vintage ships and aspects of maritime culture and technology.
Cox began a lengthy project, to write a comprehensive history of the then almost unheard of Los Angeles Steamship Company. The research took almost ten years. In 2009 the Steamship Historical Society of America published the book that Cox co-authored along with local maritime expert Gordon Ghareeb, filling an important gap in Californian and Hawaiian maritime history. The book “Hollywood to Honolulu; the story of the Los Angeles Steamship Company” (published by the Steamship Historical Society of America and printed by Glencannon Press, ) covers a vital part of Los Angeles’s development, when the fledgling city ran its own shipping line to Hawaii, and on cruises and coastal voyages during the 1920s using former German transatlantic liners and other interesting vessels.
Cox served briefly as West Coast Editor for magazine Steamboat Bill, and served as President of the Los Angeles Maritime Museum Research Society, the very group that influenced him to write the LASSCO text.
In 2010 MaritimeMatters joined USAtoday’s Travel Alliance Network, where the news organization now syndicates Knego’s SEA TREKS, and DECKED! blogs.
Along with massive and expert contributions from ocean liner journalist and roving blogger – Peter Knego, MaritimeMatters also benefits from maritime writers: Michael Bennett, Jonathan Boonzaier, Shawn J. Dake, Gordon Ghareeb, Kalle Id and others.
Thanks to Anh, technical guru and to Don Platon for consulting on new directions for the decade ahead, and for designer Ezra Pendleton with assistance from Julia Chesaree always invaluable at MaritimeMatters as we go from strength to strength.
