Armchair sailing

As the world's largest cruise in company/race, the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC) looms close, the web is filling with tips, many of which would stand any long-distance sailor in good stead. Elaine Bunting started it at Yachting World and followed up yesterday with some of the feedback (much of it conflicting). She also directed us to Captain JP's Log which looks like a blog I might follow. Lots of fun tips here including not throwing rubbish to windward when a cabin porthole is open and the skipper's asleep in her bunk under it. Sounds like solid advice! As does the stop for a swim midway but wear a costume to stop jellyfish stinging the family jewels. Ouch!

I was directed earlier to the Crewseekers site which is a whole lot nearer to real sailing that the books I wrote about yesterday. This uses an intriguing business model where yacht owners can post for free and prospective crews have to pay a subscription of, currently, £60 a half year to access details of the sailing opportunities. Good thinking! You have to be careful to get the hyphen in the URL as crewseekers.com takes you straight to a site about rabbit mating. Strange.....but true.

If confined to your armchair and away from the water, the AudioSeaStories.com site may be the ultimate low maintenance alternative to sailing. You can purchase audio versions of many of sailing's most famous books here including Joshua Slocum's " Sailing Alone Around the World ".