Moments in Sailing Blogging 2009

Looking back on 2009, the thing that struck was the way the nautical and sailing blogging community has blossomed. For me, the highlight was back in February when a bunch of us in the NY area got together for dinner mostly at the Peconic Puffin and Frogma's coaxing. Another one is in the works for January or February. You can read more about the blogs and their bloggers here. There were many community projects most instigated by the Tillerman. My favorite was Love and Sailing that was deservedly won by Captain Puffypants for his candid and funny account of a novice sail with his bride. My favorite story about blogging was a recent one, getting to know (virtually) Peter Gustaffson and his Blur blog. It's truly inspiring how one guy, one boat and a bunch of mates have become the premiere destination for sailing online in Sweden. My favorite blog post of the year was Bowsprite's nautical bestiary. It speaks for itself! My favorite Blog-like thing is actually a Youtube thing, Dylan Winter's Keep Turning Left. This is a labor of love and I have spent many happy hours sitting back and soaking in his unique narrative as he creeps along the UK coast. In other news Big Oceans' Blogger, Nick Jaffe completed his novice single-handed sail from Europe to Australia. I have been following Nick since I started my blog over three years ago. He started at about the same time, blogging about his mission to buy a boat and sail it back from Holland to Australia. I was lucky enough to have a number of guest authors who helped make this a better blog. Thanks guys! There were two accounts of a very rough Around Long Island Race by Ethan Garr and Jeff Campbell; my old mate from London, Andrew Holmes recounted a great Round the Isle Of Wight Race; and my club-mate Tim Fletcher told about a worthy cause Sail Habilitation that thanks to his and others' efforts was saved from bankruptcy. The new thing of the year was Twitter and there are a bunch of twits worth following. I am still not sure about Twitter, although it's good at getting the word out quickly. Last but not least a big shout-out to Scuttlebutt. Sailing friends who have never heard about any of us bloggers talk about Scuttlebutt as the source of sailing news!