Thanks Dave and Jackie!
*LFG* indeed
vanilladuck said:
My hope is that a faster site and forum will attract more sailors interested in singlehanding
Philpott said:
I don't think a faster site and forum is what attracts sailors to singlehanding.
Jackie, I think you read my statement differently from how I intended it. Being "interested in singlehanding" is an attribute of sailors we want to attract, and not a causal result of our website or forum being highly available and reliable.
Story time -- I told this as part of the presentation at the last SSS in-person meeting.
Once upon a time during COVID, there was a sailor who bought a boat with the intent of single-handing. It was COVID times and not many people he knew were up for getting together yet. Plus, the light had been lit in his head to sail to Hawaii solo. He didn't even know there was such a thing as the SHTP. Our main character wasn't interested in making such a voyage competitive.
Our sailor took ownership and began to refit his 1985 32' sloop. He would make occasional excursions into the bay alone. He was curious how to learn more about solo sailing and searched online for any groups who might be able to aid in his discovery. Google quickly returned a result for
sfbaysss.org. What's that? A "society" of singlehanding sailors? And they're in San Francisco? He clicked on the link with enthusiasm and waited for the site to load.
And waited.
Alas, after 10 or 12 seconds the page did not load.
"The site may not be maintained anymore," he pondered. The web is flush with dead links and sites which are no longer maintained. He moved on to other resources which were less local, like YouTube or an occasional Yachting Monthly article.
It would be more than three years until I found out from a friend that the SSS was a functioning club with regular races, meetings and the SHTP -- a race which is celebrated as much for its spirit of comradery and club support as it is for the competitive side. Each time I would see the links online I would just ignore them because I thought the site was defunct.
Just think: in a sport where there are so few participants--such a unique subsection of the sailing population which is already relatively small compared to other sports--three years went by with one less solo skipper in our society. In today's day and age, online presence is everything. Regardless of how humans connect, the initial contact is usually made in an online search, site, or app.
I wonder how many other sailors were looking for us and either gave up like I did, or became frustrated at the speed of the site/forum and moved on? Or how many current members are disengaged online who could be contributing to discussions and experiences in our forums? (which is actually the
mission of our society)
So, yes, I do dream. I've dreamed for over 100 hours while working our site. That dream is built on facts and statistics watching other sites and online services improve their presentation, reliability, and accessibility and seeing user interaction trend up and to the right. And, those were revenue-generating services. We give this stuff away for free
