Attainable Adventure Cruising website...anyone use it?

Sandy

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I belong to both. The OCC is a fine organisation but you get what I might call ‘raw information’. If I am already reasonably well informed on a point I can use the OCC mixture of experience and opinion but if I am just coming to terms with something then I will read AAC first as the data is pre digested, so to speak, by people whose judgement I know I can trust.
I like the "raw information", but the day job has always been about processing raw information and working out solutions.
 

Neeves

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The other resource to look at is Practical Sailor, for full access you do need to subscribe but much of the information is freely available.

Thinwater and I both contribute - so I am slightly biased. The expose on tether hooks, for example, after the loss from a Clipper vessel was an investigation by Thinwater. Others may have commented based on his work - but he conducted the base evaluation. It did tend to be Amerocentric but we have both tried to extend coverage to product outside America (and we both contribute here). PS does support testing and looking at a cross section of samples - unlike other reviews which may only be of single products.

Jonathan
 

Neeves

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Coincidentally this popped up on my screen this morning, check the link - now in red

A Dangerous Way to Learn - Practical Sailor Print Edition Article

You can sign on to Waypoints free - it may encourage you to subscribe.

This is an ad free publication the cost to produce the mag including the costs incurred during testing are paid by the subscribers - if there are not enough subscribers the payment for testing will not cover the overhead - and there will be no rigorous and independent testing.

The choice is ours.

Rely on the few independent sources left, AAC, PS and to a lessor extent PBO (which takes the other route and relies, successfully, on advertising or rely on the internet and forum (which of course is totally accurate and free of bias).

Jonathan
 

Walther

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BlowingOldBoots’ summary is accurate.

The proprietor/principal author has a dogmatic, brusque style. When commentators disagree he always insists on having the last word, usually along the lines of ‘you may think that, but you’re wrong’. This is tiresome, and eventually I decided to let my subscription lapse.

His argumentation can largely be avoided by sticking to the articles and eschewing the comments. But that would be a pity, because the comments are often at least as valuable as the articles.

It’s also noteworthy that it has been some years since Harries did much real voyaging, and indeed last year he listed his boat for sale. That doesn’t mean that all of his past experience is somehow no longer valid, but it may suggest that his perspective is gradually becoming somewhat dated.

Still, there is some valuable information on the website, and the subscription is modest. So try it, perhaps you’ll like it.
 

Neeves

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The complaint is often made of magazines that it appears as if there is a schedule and articles are repeated on a 2 year cycle, antifouling, anchoring, engine servicing etc. It is a real problem for the media - how to offer a fresh issue when at the end of the day the science of anchoring (is not known ) but what is known has changed little for decades.

AAC and any other subscription service (I'm thinking also of Panope and his videos) has the self same problem. In order to provide a return to those who pay a subscription you really need to offer something new, like a Northhill anchor (one that is no longer made in its original form and that few actually use). We end up with one gem of a 'publication' filled out with some contrived 'knowledge'. Sadly you could sign up - download all the historic data - cancel the subscription sure in the knowledge not much new is likely to appear uniquely in the next 2 years - without it appearing somewhere else (where you might pick it up for free)..

Its a real problem - I'm not going to do the work unless I can publish and make a nominal return and if no-one subscribes I'm not going to receive a return at all.

Jonathan
 

Ric

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Yes I subscribe - loads of really good info on the site.

I joined primarily to read the Boreal v Garcia Aventura series - which was well worth the review.

But since then I have found many interesting and thought provoking articles, The author is not only a very experienced sailor but also writes very well.
 

Walther

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Indeed, his writing style is something one either loves or hates. Personally I find it sanctimonious and entirely humourless; clearly you (and many others) disagree.

I would encourage people to pay for a trial subscription and form their own judgments.

I’ve broken bread with Harries a couple of times, and although he took himself very seriously he was not the prig that (IMO) his website suggests.
 
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