The Offshore Voyaging Reference Site

Multiply That By 200,000

The Problem

Our parents raised us to be conscientious about returning phone calls, responding to letters, sending thank you notes for favours done, etc. And John and I still think that’s a good way to be brought up.

But our parents weren’t faced with running a site that has over 200,000 readers a year, many of whom want to interact with us directly. Which is wonderful. Thank you.

What We Can’t Do Anymore

However, we just don’t have time to respond to each and every email we receive anymore (sorry, Mom). And we just can’t answer individual detailed questions about:

  • what boat you should buy,
  • what price you should pay,
  • how to outfit your boat,
  • how to cruise a specific destination.

And we can easily understand how that could really piss some of you off.

But turning things around and looking at what it feels like from our perspective may help:

When you write to us with what seems like a small reasonable request to you (actually, very few questions about boats are simple to answer properly), imagine that request multiplied by several hundred a year.

What We Can Do

Now, all that said, don’t forget that we have a wonderful consultant on board in Colin Speedie, who can help you for a fee. And also don’t forget that there is a huge amount of content on the site, either free or reasonably priced, that addresses most of the issues you write to us about.

And John and I are committed to continuing to:

  • create lots of original new content,
  • respond to the thousands of comments that members write on the site each year,
  • publish the Norwegian Cruising Guide,
  • keep up with the administrative load of running the site.

Changes We Are Making

But, as AAC is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds (a good thing but not without its challenges), we need to cut back somewhere, and we are starting that process by:

  1. Only promising to respond to emails from members;
  2. Requesting that all questions from members be posted as comments to an appropriate post on the site.