September 23

Why do sailing web sites suck so much (blogs excepted)

Favorite Posts, Sailing Blogs

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Let me start with a disclosure. I am an Internet professional. OK that’s an oxymoron. What I meant to say was that I work for a company that designs and builds web sites for a living.

The thing that amazes me is that most professional (and I use the term loosely) sailing web sites are truly mediocre with the exception of blogs (more on that later). I went on a search to find the best sailing web site or sailing blog, thinking that the established media would do the best job.

Lets start with doing a Google search of the word sail. Sail mag of course comes up top. While I subscribe to their print magazine as it does a nice job of covering a wide range of aspects of sailing, the Web site is awful. It’s basically some bits of the magazine posted to the web. All the other US magazines are equally crap. These so called companion sites do very little online in relation to what they could be doing. These guys just don’t seem to get the potential.

The only sailing mag that I have found that has made an effort is Yachting and Boating World, aka ybw.com. This is what is known in the biz as the portal approach, IE they have taken all their mags and aggregated them into one site organized by category and information type. At least it’s a different experience than reading the individual magazine companion sites. That said, it’s still a bit boring and there are better places to get the info they’re putting out.

Cover
For me the most disappointing is Latitudes and Attitudes. It’s my favorite sailing mag. I love their boats, birds and booze format. It’s a lad mag for the salty set. The thing I love about the magazine is the down-to earth home feel about the magazine. The “Reader’s Wife” on the front always makes me smile. The articles are of variable quality, grammar and spelling but it’s a good read. Above all it makes me feel like I am part of a tribe and this is where I am so disappointed by the online experience.

L&A’s site is like a 1997 high school project gone wrong. For starters they have taken the homemade feel a bit too far. This one looks the sort of site I taught myself to design in 1996 (and let me tell you I am not a designer). But the worst bit about this site like all the other sites is the way they fail to extend their community online.

To give them some credit, at least they have a bulletin board. That’s more than the other sites have. But come on guys this is 2006. Web 2.0 and all that. If ever site should be a blog it’s this one. hey Bob Bitchin, get with the program.

This brings me on to sailing blogs. I set mine up about a month ago and it’s got me to explore all the great sailing blogs our there. As a blogging community, I think we are pretty small. I did a bit of digging around on Technorati, a site that ranks blogs among other things. It looked to me like the top-rated sailing blog is Proper Course. Tillerman you are in top 25,000 blogs. Given that there are millions of blogs and 70,000 new ones a day this is no small feat. The other site that seems to rank highly is Horse’s Mouth. In third place is Frogma. Neither are strictly sailing sites . From what I can tell,  the ranking is based on how many sites link to you.

Mine is a measly 1,146,084th ranks blog, so who the hell am I to be commenting. Anyway looks like sailing bloggers have the responsibility to make the web a better place for sailors.

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sail blogs, sail sites, sailing blogs, sailing sites

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  1. Thanks for the plug but you are laying a heavy responsibility on me and other sailing bloggers.
    I still haven’t really worked out what my ambitions for Proper Course are… maybe have fun expressing my random thoughts about sailing, explore different styles of writing, make contact with other like-minded individuals and create a small community of fellow sailing bloggers…
    Making the web a better place for sailors is a bit out of my league.

  2. I am not suggesting that sailing bloggers need to do anything different. Franlky that would be contrived. My point is that, for me anyway, the most interesting stuff on sailing are in blogs not on the sites of the sailing magazines.
    I learn more, am provoked more and generally have a better time by hopping between a bunch of various sailing-oriented blogs than by staying at sailmag.com.

  3. I guess it’s permitted for us to do some incidental good while having our fun. Of course, as private bloggers, we don’t have to worry about offending advertisers and sponsors and all that ^*%$&* stuff. And, we don’t have to write for a universal audience or some sort of lowest-common-denominator. So, if a couple of the inside jokes or categories in (my wife on her itsfiveoclocksomewhere blog) Carol Anne’s Sailing Personality Quiz were a bit barbed for general consumption, so bloody what. I don’t have to make posts based on what a market survey says my audience wants; I can twaddle on for hours and hours just as I please.

  4. The best blogs have a point of view and provoke you. My favorite blog is Adscam. It’s not for the faint-hearted. It’s a daily rant from by an ex-ad guy. It’s bloody rude, sometimes obscene, always funny and sometimes insightful.
    The last thing I am suggesting is that any sailing blogger change course. No pun intended. OK pun intended.
    On the contrary sailing blogs are already more interesting than the big sailing sites because they have a unique perspective.

  5. I’m in WHAT place?
    That’s like when I won third place in an open-water swimming race in the Hudson that I’d barely trained for. I’d done fine, I’m a good swimmer, but I hadn’t pushed, I was just doing it for kicks. But for one split second there it was like “Me? Third place?Wow, maybe I should forget all this silly boat business & focus on swimming, I’m a natural!” – but that was just for a split second, then I realized, no, that’s just got to be wrong — there were more than 2 women just treading water waiting to climb the ladder in front of me, and plenty more already out.
    I pointed that out & upon investigation, it turned out that one of the timekeepers keyed a number in wrong.
    Upon further investigation, I find that the Technorati ratings are based on how many links you have if you happen to be a Technorati member and have tagged your blog “sailing”. I think that Tillerman & the Horse’s Mouth (did you SEE that rough weather sailing video? YIKES!) probably deserve their rankings but I think for me to claim any high ranking among sailing blogs would be cheating because I only actually write a little bit about sailing.
    I certainly could tell some entertaining stories about working on a passenger schooner in New York Harbor if I chose too, but I tend to be a little reticent on that front. I suspect that my lovely part-time sailing job would probably be over the day anyone attached to the boat stumbled across me making light of even the weirdest passenger (and trust me, although the vast majority of our passengers are really nice folks, we do get some doozies). You can’t take somebody’s money and then let your staff make fun of them.
    Thanks for the link though!

  10. I agree completely. Some cruising friends of mine are working on a better sailing site as we speak ( yachtpals.com ). It is in beta testing now so if anyone wants to help make a better online sailing community now is your change to have your input heard.

  11. At the boaters.tv we film podcasts every week and do segments on sailboats all the time. Come check our site theboaters.com and our podcasts! The boaters.com is a website to bring boaters around the world together to talk about boating, their boats and events! Plus as a producer for TheBoaters.TV I am always looking for feedback and input from other boaters out there!
    -Alicia

  15. I,m pretty sure I’m a little late on this comment but I only have a couple of things to say. 1. It’s easy to be a critic!
    2. Some of us are out here living it and trying to pass on the information. But when your actually living it, there are factors that create problems. Offshore internet and keeping your boat and your life safe!
    Cheers http://www.ascensionatsea.com

  17. I recently started blogging. After nearly 15 years of sailing and reading everything I can get my hands on, I decided to start sharing my own experiences and ideas. I’m curious if the author still thinks sailing on the web is still mediocre.
    My blog, by the way, is http://www.saildonnybrook.com.

  18. Looks like you could start a new column (or consulting sideline) just on ‘sailing blog evaluations’.
    Everyone wants to know how they stack up. Hard to know when you’re writing in a niche.
    All the rankings you mention are for internet-wide rankings. Which means sailing writers get buried under all the frivolous news o’ the world/politics/sports sites that are surging about (frivolous is correctly defined as any site not entirely devoted to the wonders of sailing, o’ course).
    Is there a ‘Messing About in Sailboats’ Top 10 (20? 30?) Sites in the offing?
    yours devotedly,
    http://thecruisingkitty.blogspot.com/

  19. I’ve visited so many sailing blogs and for me the best one is where I can get to read some good sailing experiences as well as some tips whenever one would like to buy a sailboat. Sure enough, when a site has something to share that is interesting and not offensive I will always enjoy reading it.

  20. Sailing web site become infected with power boaters and their idiotic rants. That’s what makes them suck.

  21. It’s kinda hard to have a cool sailing website. I mean apart from pictures of sailboats and writing on boats. What else can you talk about?

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