The Cruising Association

I have been a member of the Cruising Association, www.cruising.org.uk for well over 20 years. It now has over 4,000 members world wide. In my early days of sailing it's comprehensive library, at their Limehouse Dock headquarters in London, was of great help with my voyage planning. These days I mainly use it's crewing service but sometimes attend lectures on particular cruises and sailing subjects. The famous sailor, Sir Robin Knox Johnson, was a recent President and now patron.

In 2006 I won the Cruising Association Hanson Cup for the best hard copy log of a cruise in that year. This cruise started in Southampton, then Cherbourg (to stock up on cheap booze!), Salcombe, Falmouth, Isles of Scilly, Padstow, Skomer Island (SW Wales), Isle of Man, Western Highlands, the Crinan Canal, the Great Rift / Caledonian Canal from Fort William to Inverness, Orkney, Shetlands, Faeroe Islands and back via Ireland. 

In 2007 I entered the log of my cruise in the Baltic which also included the North Sea Canal into the Ijsslelmeer (Dutch inland sea), the Kiel Canal (across northern Germany) and the Gota Canal that goes right across Sweden from the Baltic coast to the North Sea. I thought this was a better log but unfortunately it didn't win.

This year I hope to enter a log of this cruise for the 2012 Lacey Trophy for "the best member's website or blog covering cruising in the year".