More Sailing Blogs

After my posts on Top Ten Sailing Blogs of 2005 in January and the Boating Blog Roundup at the end of March, we're due for another Tillerman review of sailing blogs. This time I'd thought I'd draw your attention to some of the more unusual sailing blogs out there, in a variety of niches.

Two Photo Blogs. I read some blogs mainly for the writing; others are attractive because of the photos. Prime in this category is Sailscape by Willie Waw who publishes first class picture of tall ships, classic yachts, Rhode Island seascapes and occasional photos of his kids racing.

Totally different is Ferroever, the blog of Bead Perkins a self-confessed "nobody from Middle England, and a girl to boot". She's recently been cruising the Eastern Mediterranean but has her eyes set on the South Pacific. If you're interested she's looking for crew but they must be...

non-dribblers, shiny, happy folks, who see this voyage as a once in a lifetime chance to experience sleep deprivation and have competitions in cultivating the blackest neck possible. Interested? You've got to want to do it; you've got to be tough; you've got to realise that sailing can sometimes be 99% hell; and most importantly, you've got to have decent tablemanners, and be a person who doesn't bite their cutlery.

This is, of course, much much more than a photo blog but Ms Perkins definitely wins the award for most prolific poster of photos.

Four Campaign Blogs. We can all learn by reading what top sailors write about their sailing campaigns. Unfortunately many top racing sailors who start websites or blogs are not good writers or don't take the time to update their sites on a regular basis. Some exceptions are Danish Olympic windsurfing hopeful Moses Lovstad, former Moth World Champion from Australia Rohan Veal (check out his account about not quite winning the 2006 Moth Worlds last month), and also from Australia Scott Babbage, who won the 29er Worlds last month crewing for Silja Lehtinen. Rounding out the quartet is the blog of American Laser sailor Andrew Campbell, CampbellSailing. All four of these guys are at the top of their game, and as well as being superb sailors they know how to write about it too.

Two Sailing Blogs From Unlikely Places. You can't keep racing sailors down. It seems that wherever you can find sailable water that is (a) actually there for some of the year and (b) actually liquid for a few months, you will find racing sailors. As a case in point here is the blog of the Alaska Sailing Club who sail on Big Lake, Alaska from May to September; and at the other extreme Desert Sea - New Mexico Sailing which is written by Pat Byrne the commodore of New Mexico Sailing Club whose main concern would seem to be whether his water will disappear rather than freeze.

One Blog about Building a Sailboat. I'm not much of a fan of boat maintenance and the thought of building a sailboat from scratch with my bare hands seems like an Everest that I would never scale. But the author of First Australian Swift Solo has no such qualms. A single-handed sailing nut like myself his blog chronicles, with photos, his building of the first Swift Solo in Australia.

The Swift Solo is a high performance one person boat that was designed in the USA by Bram Dally. It uses the 49er as inspiration. It has a self tacking jib and the sheeting is linked to the main sheet so the two sails are always at the correct sheeting angle. The spinnaker is masthead and large!

And He's Back. Peter Huston had a blog called BuffaloNiagaraSailing that made my earlier Boating Blog Roundup. He killed it abruptly in April with these words...

It's time to end this blog.

The initial intention of this blog was to foster communication between clubs and fleets for the purpose of creating more local growth in racing. I have failed in that mission this winter.

Thanks for your past readership and kind comments.

But now he's back with Sailing As I Sea It. Controversial and opinionated as ever he has already been stirring up a lot of reaction from his readers with his views on how a race committee mishandled (in Peter's view) a situation with a young racer in a casual fun race as he sailed around The Gates of Hell. Welcome back Peter.

So that makes 30 sailing, or otherwise watery, blogs that I've reviewed in this post, Top Ten Sailing Blogs of 2005, and Boating Blog Roundup. Most of them are still active. Most of them are strong candidates for the grand competition to be one of Tillerman's Top Ten Sailing Blogs of 2006. Who will make the final cut? Only 5 months left guys. Get blogging.