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Subject: [worldcruising] Introduction / Communication
From: Jon E. Mitchiner (jon@XXX.XXX)
Date: Thu Sep 27 2001 - 18:06:05 EDT
Greetings!
Ever since subscribing to the list, it asked everyone to introduce
themselves. I have delayed a bit to see what the list was like (a week so
far) and I think its time to introduce myself to everyone and to get
various feedback from world cruising sailors!
My wife, Julie and I have been sailing for two years now with about three
weeks of sailing during those 2 years. Our sailing experience (excluding
being "passengers" on a friends boat, etc) has been limited to the PDQ 36
Classic Catamaran and we really love the boat we have chartered in Chespeake
Bay. The boat is called Anagyri and is owned by Blanche and Len Scharf in
Deltaville, VA if anyone knows them. They regularly cruise to Florida and
the Carribean islands, especially in the winter. They are excellent
teachers and have taught both of us how to sail and we've picked up since
then. I liked their attention to us as I did not want to take a "sailing
class" and learn how to sail with many other people, I believe the personal
touch is great.
Julie and I have been discussing about purchasing a boat in the near future
(about 2-3 years) and we have not yet decided on a boat yet and we plan to
attend the Annapolis boat show next week to get a better idea of what kind
of boats are on the market. We already like catamarans thus far, though our
sailing experience has been limited to multihulls. I dont want to start a
monohull vs multihull debate here, but if you have opinions on one or the
other, please email me directly at jon@XXX.XXX
Our dream is to sail around the world, though we are having some difficult
things to overcome to be able to do it. Our biggest concern thus far is we
both are deaf, and the sailing community seems to be heavily dependent on
the use of radios (VHF, HAM, etc). We are worried about not being able to
keep in touch with other boats in the community, or being able to talk to
the harbors/marinas and get weather reports, or tips/GPS locations on coming
into difficult ports, especially when the weather is bad. I am currently
studying the community to see whether we might be able to "get by" using ham
radio and keeping in touch with others solely via email, and inmarsat as a
backup device in case if ham breaks and have friends in the sailing
community in the area contact harbors for us, etc.
What I am curious is if anyone in the current sailing community uses some
kind of "online chat" methods, similar to what the internet has for IRC
(Internet Relay Chat) or instant messenging (e.g. AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo). I
think this would be helpful so we could keep in touch with boats nearby in
case if anything bad happens. I would love to hear suggestions and/or ideas
on resolving our potential concerns about communications issues we may face
and any other potential problems we will confront while sailing as we want
to learn about all kinds of "not being able to hear" problems so we can try
to be prepared for them before we start our voyage.
Does anyone know of other "general sailing" mailing lists that I should
subscribe to? Most mailing lists Ive found so far are designated for
specific boats yet (we havent decided which boat we want!) and this is the
only general list that Ive found thus far.
Thanks in advance for any feedback or opinions you can provide.
Regards,
Jon E. Mitchiner
Minotaur Technologies
http://www.minotaur.com
AOL IM [http://www.aol.com/aim] MinotaurT
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