We were totally blown away by the response to my suggestion for ‘Skiprs’ attending the Wooden Boat Festival to get together for breakfast. Over 60 people responding to the invite. We had to change the venue to cope with the numbers, causing a bit of last minute confusion despite our best efforts to contact people.

It was a thrill for me to see the enthusiasm for Skipr.net and it looked like everyone was enjoying meeting together. Thanks everyone – we’ll do it again.

The Wooden Boat Festival (pictures) has established itself as THE venue for anyone who enjoys boats and anything made of wood (or antique outboards!). It has grown into an event that every cruising sailor needs to attend (and indeed, plenty were there. Joy and I spent three days walking around and still didn’t see everything.

The enthusiasm by the volunteers who largely run the Fest is inspiring and infectious. Well done, Hobart.

Marius

Hobart Skipr Meetup 

New Reporting page

Alternative ways to report your position

Off the beaten track

Support Skipr.net

With so many cruising boats  in Hobart for the Festival and the Circumnavigation, there is a unique opportunity to catch up with other “Skiprs”. Catch up with boats you follow on Skipr.net or have a chat with Marius about what you’d like see next on Skipr.net.

We’re having a casual breakfast get together – nothing formal, just an opportunity to catch up with people you might have only read about on Skipr.net. Join us for Sunday breakfast on 10th February at Cafe  T42 on Elizabeth Street Pier from 0830hrs to around 1030 (this is a change in venue due to the confirmed numbers sofar !). If you’re planning to be there, drop us an email (skipper@skipr.net), so we can give the Cafe some idea about numbers – it is bound to be a busy day around the Dock that day!

Joy and Marius

It’s that time of the year – the best time to cruise to Tasmania! It is promising to be a super year to be in Hobart in early February.

• The Wooden Boat Festival.
• The last stop for the Island Cruising Association’s Western Pacific Rally
• The destination of the CYCA  Hobart 2013 cruise
• The start of the Van Diemensland Circumnavigation

We will be there and look forward to meeting up with many of the “Skiprs”.

On tuesday this week, I participated in the meeting at the CYCA about their Tasmania cruise early next year. We’ve set up a cruise page on Skipr for them and look forward to ‘following along’. My presentation (on using Skipr and Internet at sea) is below.

There was a lot of interest in the inReach Satellite Communicator, check out this page on my other site TracknSend.com. And of course for any other questions, drop me an email – skipper@skipr.net

In Frank’s weather talk, he mentioned Frank’s Weather site (no, it’s another Frank). A very useful site indeed.

The slides of my presentation are below. [...]

I enjoyed catching up with the Cruising Crowd at the Island Cruising Association (ICA) in Auckland for their meeting on Friday night.

To get more information on the inReach Satellite Communicator, check out this page my other site TracknSend.com. And of course for any other questions, drop me an email – skipper@skipr.net

The slides of my presentation (Part 1 – Skipr Overview and Pt 2 – Internet at Sea) are below. [...]

This month’s “showcase” boat is Nellie Dick, a replica Dutch barge, cruising the inland waters of the Netherlands. The photo was taking a few years ago when she was “iced in”.

I’ll admit  to a bit of nostalgia around boats in Holland (yes, the skipper was born there).  Holland offers a rich variety of inland cruising and Nellie Dick looks to be eminently suitable!

The cruisers wiki has some rudimentary information on cruising in the Netherlands. The Barge Association website has good  information about barges.

This year, we’ve been showcasing a boat on our front page every month, showing the wide range of activities by Skipr.net users. This month, I felt it was time for the “bigger picture”, highlighting all Skipr.net users, rather than just focussing on one boat and its adventures.

It’s  terrific to see Skipr.net expand to hundreds of boats, reporting back to friends and family across an area covering Australia, South Asia and the Western Pacific. Not forgetting users elsewhere… With lots of stories, it is great to follow so many of you! And of course I would encourage anyone to occasionally use the map’s zoom controls and click on a random boat on our Currently Cruising page and share the experience of others.

Fair Winds to all,

Marius (skipper@skipr.net)

This month’s Track/Boat of the Month is  Windflower, the lead boat of the Western Pacific Rally which has now been underway since late April. John Martin, skipper of Windflower, heads up the Island Cruising Association out of New Zealand. Their regular track is around the islands (Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu etc.), but this year a longer cruise takes them North to the Solomons and then West to Australia via the Louisiades.

As John cruisies down the East Coast of Australia, he intends to give a series of seminars about Pacific Cruising, not to be missed. In the mean time you can follow along on the Windflower page as it makes it way to Australia.

John uses the Skipr Plus facility to update his position regularly via email. He says it’s a snap to use together with the UUplus service.

Boy, what did I let myself in for with this competition? There are some stunning boat pictures on the Skipr system.

We all love our boats and the way they look. How can I pick one winner without antagonising the 120 others who posted their position on Skipr.net during May? So I did what every smart skipper does, I left it to the Admiral. Joy picked the best photo, and I relented by having a couple of runners up. But still, there are so many others… next time. [...]