May 2006 Archives

While the cruising committee has a comprehensive range of cruising planned for the coming year, we all like  "rolling our own" as well. So here are a few items of interest for independent cruising:

• Plan your NSW coastal cruise (Download Excel Spreadsheet) with this spreadsheet. It has a handy distance lookup and with the "Planner" sheet you can plan a multi-stage cruise by simply selecting destinations.
• One Minute Form (Download as a Word or PDF file). The purpose of this Form is to provide the Club, rescue organisations and designated contact persons with an idea of your sailing plans, whether they involve an overnight at Refuge Bay, a weekend down the Harbour, or a month away up north.  Use it on those occasions when you believe the Club should have a record of your sailing plans.  Why not customise the form with your details, print a few copies and have them handy? Next time you are going away, just fill it out the blanks and leave it at Reception.
• Skipr.net (site, info) For those with internet access on their boat, Skipr.net is a handy way of keeping those ashore  informed about your location. It is no substitute for logging with your choice of VMR when you're away. But it gives friends and family a simple web page with your location. Register for this free service here.

Several people have asked me about an update to the piece about Internet access on the Te Moana website last year  at sea. Everyone has heard about Telstra's decision to make its CDMA coverage obsolete in early 2008.  My "little green box", which served me so well on Belage's Hobart cruise, uses the CDMA network and will therefore be obsoleted. And even though it is still available, Telstra Mobile have changed the plans to make it unattractive. Sigh...
So here are some alternatives (with one really attractive one):

On Saturday morning, Joy and I usually listen to Sailors Radio (0800 on FM107.30). It's usually entertaining even though it's biased toward racing and has a lot of news about a Sydney club which happens to have Cruising in its name but is known better for its Racing.

Anyway, they interviewed the Commodore of the Australian Volunteer Coast Guard about the to-ing and fro-ing about proposals to amalgamate the Coast Guard with Coastal Patrol, sigh.... You can read more about that issue it in the letters comlumn of Afloat (which, by the way, you can read online at the Afloat website).

You might be also be interested to have a look at the Coast Guard's website some time. It has a lot of information about its organisation and structure but lacks the simple information which most of us are intererested in: The details of their stations such as opening hours, telephone numbers etc...

Anyway, all this was really just an excuse to point you at some Cruising related websites for ideas about what we might do with our site (or not).

Neil and Ley Langford continue their cruising adventures in Sout East Asia. Neil seems to be impressed at the amount of "Folding Money" he just coaxed out of the Hole In The Wall! .

Download their report here

As the club is looking to re-design its main site soon, it is to be expected that this (prototype) website will be folded into the club's new site. So:

• What do you like about the cruising website and what don't you like?
• What additional features would you like to see in the next version of the site?

Or if you prefer, score the current web site from 1-5:

• Design (what do you think about the way it looks?)
• Easy of use (Can you find what you're looking for?)
• Functionality (Does it provide what you expect from it?)

Feel free to leave your feedback as a comment here on the site or email Marius Coomans (mh@coomans.net). By the way, feel free to speak your mind. Constructive criticism is very welcome...