BoatGobin.com has over 2,700 UK based companies listed in the Marine Directory.

If you want to find a broker, mooring, someone to service your engine or a sail maker, just go to the Directory and search for a company in your area.

BoatGoblin.com is also for you to list your items for sale as either a classified or an auction. Each listing is free and you can have one photo free as well.

Related posts:

1. 10 Reasons to use BoatGoblin.com
2. Top 9 Websites to Buy or Sell a Boat
3. Cheap way to get on the water? Buy an Inflatable Dinghy

Harbour Exchange’s ‘Top 9 Websites to Buy or Sell a Boat’ includes a little-known and not-yet-well-used ‘New Entrant’ in the guise of our friendly little Goblin named ‘Hex’. As it is free to register and list an item for sale on BoatGoblin.com, if you are going to use one of the other sites to list a boat, can we please ask you to consider placing the same item for sale with our little green friend?

Here are our Top 8 (plus 1):

1. BoatShed.com (Broker) – Easy to work with, lots and lots of photos (up to 70) with an excellent on-line presence. In fact the broker personally photographs every boat in minute detail so they can vouch for the state of the boat before anyone comes to view it. They are the new breed of brokers that are growing because of a great reputation and service. Because their online presence is so good, many boats are sold to overseas buyers on the strength of the details and photos alone. If they were not being so honest and open this would not be possible and the fact that they are continuing to grow shows the level of trust people have with this organisation. I have met the team behind BoatShed and they are an impressive bunch. In fact I very nearly bought a franchise from them back in 2008. (www.boatshed.com)
2. BoatBid.com (Auction) – BoatBid.com is part of BoatShed.com and enables people to have their boats auctioned rather than advertised at a set price. The model is not the same as the ebay type auction most are familiar with, as potential bidders need to be registered  (£4.95 one-off) and the process is managed by the BoatBid team. This could be an excellent way to maximise the sale price of your boat if you are selling, or to pick up a real bargain if you are buying. You bid and if you are the winning bidder, you pay 10% deposit within 5 days. Then you have 21 days to complete a survey and the transaction in full. (www.boatbid.com)
3. Boats and Outboards (Classified) – They regularly boast more than 13,000 adverts everyday from both private advertisers and brokers. Many of the brokers also list their ‘stock’ on Boats and Outboards so you get the best of the brokers’ and private sellers’ offerings. For a private seller to place an advert it is free for any item and they can then pay to have lots of photos or to be featured. I’ve used this site to advertise a business and to sell a boat. The response to the ‘boat for sale’ was pretty good. The listing process is easy and does not require any registration, and the only problem I had was that it took rather too many attempts to upload the photo. (www.boatsandoutboards.co.uk)
4. Ebay (Classified, Auction and Buy it Now) - At the time of writing there are over 50,000 items on ebay.co.uk under the search category of ‘Boats’. Of course not all are Yachts or Dinghies, but this shows that it is a very active market place for all things boating. You can place auctions, classifieds or items as a ‘Buy it Now’. With ebay being the biggest on-line marketplace you get the benefit of lots of people getting exposure to your listing but there are some downsides too – like the expense. I recently sold an old Laser Dinghy on ebay for £765 and paid almost £45 in fees which I think is pretty expensive. The more expensive the item though, the lower the percentage cost (as final fees are capped at £40). For lower priced items, bank on losing 10% plus insertion/photo fees. Now if you are a buyer, using ebay can be excellent, but you need to be careful and make sure you know the seller’s ratings, and that you get all questions answered before the final bid. I know of a couple of young guys who buy cheap boats and accessories, tidy them up and the re-sell them on ebay again for a profit, so if you’re buying, you can bag yourself a bargain if you are careful and thorough. (www.ebay.co.uk)
5. YBW Boats for Sale (Classified) – YBW.com 0r Yachting and Boating World is owned by IPC Media which also owns many other magazine titles, including ‘Practical Boat Owner’ (PBO), ‘Yaching Monthly’ and ‘Motor Boat Monthly’ to name just a few. In addition to a great deal of high quality news, info, reviews, etc on their site, there is a section devoted to boats for sale. There are 2 sides to this section, ‘Brokerage Boats’ and ‘Private Boats’. As you would expect from the largest marine publisher in the UK, there are all sorts of packages for the private seller, ranging from web only to web plus all magazines, and these vary in cost depending on what type of advert you want, in how many publications and for how long. As well as large and expensive boats, they also have a special section on Boats for Under £10,000. (www.ybw-boatsforsale.com)
6. BoatShop24 (Classified) – More than 102,000 adverts from over 15 Countries from both the Trade (Brokers) and private sellers. This is also a free site to advertise your boat for sale. The site also includes links to tests of boats from BoatTest.com which is a nice touch. Where there is one posted, and where it is relevant to the boat you are interested in this can be really useful. (www.boatshop24.com)
7. Apollo Duck (Classified) – Thousands of adverts on the UK part of the site from fishing boats to yachts and everything in between. To place a basic advert is free but for £39.95 the advert can be upgraded to have multiple photos, videos and lots of other information besides. Apollo Duck is an international site with listings from virtually every country of the World. (www.apolloduck.co.uk)
8. Boats.com (Classified) – Boats.com is a US based site that has been over in the UK for quite a while at http://uk.boats.com as well as France, Spain, Netherlands, Italy and Australia. They have over 150,000 boats listed from Brokerage to Private sale. For private sellers, this is a huge marketplace that has been established for a long time so is a good choice, though they haven’t yet woken to the idea of free basic adverts. A basic advert will cost £11 for a 2 week period with just 1 photo. This seems like a lot to me. Their upgrade packages provide unlimited photos for 6 weeks at £31, and a premium 12 week version for £49. If they sell your boat you won’t mind paying this but with many other free sites you might think twice before placing an advert here. (http://uk.boats.com)
9. BoatGoblin.com (Classified, Auction and Buy it Now) – This is a little bit of self-promotion as our little friend ‘Hex’ the friendly Boat Goblin has only been out and about in his little motor boat for a little while. BoatGoblin.com is a Harbour Exchange venture and the site enables people to list items as either auction or classified free of charge for a basic listing. It’s not yet in the same league as the big boys above which have been established for many many years, but our little Goblin is already making waves as you’ll be able to see from the site logo. Free to join, free to list, free to use. (www.boatgoblin.com)

Related posts:

1. 10 Reasons to use BoatGoblin.com
2. Over 2,700 Marine Businesses Listed at BoatGoblin.com

BMW Oracle Racing have been testing in San Diego. Some great footage of the beast with the 3 wings… 2 horizontal ones on each side of the hull and 1 vertical foil. It looks strange but it moves like a dinghy.

In just 7 knots of wind the massive trimaran flies on only one of its horizontal wings. It’s a massive 90ft by 90ft as a platform and the vertical wing is almost 200ft tall. With an engine onboard to move the wing, there are no more grinders. Surely that’s just not Cricket! (For those nations bereft of the greatest gentlemans sport on the planet you may not understand that comment.)

It’s very impressive, but is it what’s needed in the America’s Cup? I can’t be the only one who is bored sh**less over the court wranglings. Can’t these grown men put their egos away and prove they have the best team at SAILING? Where apples are compared with apples?

What does my opinion matter? Have a look and marvel.

This video gives a little insight into the flying machine…

And here is a longer video showing it moving around the bay…

Related posts:

1. Oracle’s Americas Cup success down to technology
2. Cowes Week 2010: Ben Ainslie looks to put wind in America’s Cup sails
3. Can sails be considered ballast?

Big thanks to www.boatinsurance.org for including Harbour Exchange in their top 50 must read boating blogs.

We are chuffed to bits. Thank you.

Check out their post here: http://www.boatinsurance.org/50-must-read-boating-blogs/

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• 50 Must Read Boating Blogs (boatinsurance.org)

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3. List boating stuff you no longer want for Free

I have been lucky to see Guy Kawasaki give his ‘Art of the Start‘ talk live. If you have the chance to see him, don’t miss it. It’s irreverent, cuts through the corporate bull and is very, very funny. For those that don’t know Guy, he worked at apple in the early days, runs a venture capital company and has co-founded a company called ‘Alltop‘. He has over 190,000 followers on Twitter (@guykawasaki) and describes himself in his bio as ‘a firehose that answers the question: What’s interesting?’

Why a firehose? Because he pumps out all the most interesting articles that appear on Alltop in both his Twitter feed and via his Posterous blog ‘Holy Kaw‘. You’ll get everything from interesting photos, information on the web, gadgets, politics and articles he and his team think are interesting. And the tweets come thick and fast, hence the reference to being a firehose.

Alltop was inspired by PopURLs, a service that aggregates all top news feeds from interesting websites and puts the URLs on a single page. Popular URL’s. Only, Alltop has done this with hundreds of categories, including sailing and boating. It is a useful place to see the latest news from across the Internet – except that it is impossible to get your blog or news feed listed. Impossible. You can put forward a submission and – no reply. No acknowledgement. Email them. Submit again. Email again. Submit in a different category. Nothing. Not one reply. No communication whatsoever.

Allnews has been inspired by Alltop except it is dedicated to boating and sailing only. Plus it is part of Harbour Exchange where sailors have access to the Club House, Bid or Buy or the Boat Register and Sailing CV. PLUS – if you submit a blog or news feed, WE won’t ignore you. Harbour Exchange is by sailors for sailors. What makes you happy makes us happy.

Bookmark http://allboatne.ws or even bookmark http://bestboatne.ws which will take you right to the Allnews section. If you follow Harbour Exchange on Twitter (@harbourexchange) you’ll notice that the url shortener is now http://boatne.ws too.

We also want more submissions from our readers for great blogs, news, racing, cruising, magazine feeds to include in BoatNe.ws

If you have a suggestion, then use the discussion/comments section below to give us a great tip. Let us know the site url and the feed url.

And….if you like this new section, please share the link with others, tweet this post, or tell others about Harbour Exchange.

Thank you.

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1. Release your Inner blogger – write for Harbour Exchange
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Jessica Watson has set sail from Sydney Harbour on her quest to complete a 21,000 mile solo circumnavigation. She is 16 and although the trip will take approximately 8 months, she hopes to get back (if all goes to plan) on May 18th, the day before she turns 17. This would make her the youngest person to complete a solo circumnavigation by some 164 days. Even if she doesn’t command ‘Ella’s Pink Lady’ back with military precision she still has the leeway of those 164 days to beat Mike Perham who in turn beat Zac Sunderland earlier in the year.

Zac did a great job. Mike did a great job. Let’s just pray that Jessica does too.

It is easy to call these brave kids heros once they are back from their adventures alive, but until the day they cross the finish line they run so many risks. Sailing in the Solent on a brisk afternoon can be dangerous, even with another 5 people to help out. Imagine being alone, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night when something goes wrong………oh, of course, Jessica knows about that one already.

On September 09, her first night at sea on her yacht, she collided with a 63,000 tonne Chinese coal carrier, Silver Yang off the southern Queensland coastline at about 2.10am. Back on dry land (thankfully alive) and after reportedly making a few inappropriate comments about the crew of the Silver Yang, she refused explain much about the incident. The Maritime Safety Queensland (MSQ) concluded that Jessica:

• Most probably dozed off before her vessel hit and was dragged alongside the 63,000-tonne cargo ship
• Did not turn on a device that would have warned her of a potential collision
• Could not produce a clear, plotted plan for her journey
• Had not developed a fatigue management plan
• Kept a log with ‘irregular latitude and longitude entries’

The conclusion from MSQ was that Jessica should abandon her trip. Well just three weeks later and she set sail on that trip, with Jessica and her parents showing a complete disregard for the advice of the professionals (who have safetly at the heart of their agenda rather than a ‘prize’).

Does the ‘Chinese coal carrier crash’ demonstrate a massive lack of experience or was it a mistake that anyone, including and experienced sailor, could have made? Surely it demonstrates a gross lack of experience. Competitors in long ocean-gowing events work hard at sleep management before they set off. They generally remember to switch on the correct instruments to help them and if our Heros, Ellen MacArthur and Dee Caffarri are anything to go by, they are meticulous to the point of OCD about repair, safety, speed…

In truth a 35 year old could have made those same errors so it isn’t that Jessica is 16 that’s the issue. But, a 35 year old would have had more than twice the life and so could have the oportunity to gain the relevant experience. Mike Perham at least had done a solo transatlantic crossing in preparation.

So, given the fact that she demonstrated she is not yet competent enough to under take 21,000 miles, or more (Mike Perham sailed over 28,000), solo, that she was advised to abandon her trip by the professionals and her parents allowed her to go out there all by herself is staggering. I’m a parent and can’t fathom this decision.

Now it gets worse, Roger Watson, Jessica’s father is reported to have said

“It would be devastating if we lost her … but I still think it would be worse to say ‘no you can’t go’ because of that risk, because of what she’s put into it,” (The Courier Mail, 19 Oct)

This demonstrates the weakest parenting imaginable. Parenting is about bring up responsible human beings who contribute willingly to society. It is not about endulging the child’s desires to break records (would she really be doing this if it weren’t for the record?). If my child said they wanted to jump off a cliff with some ‘home-made’ wings they had spent such a lot of time and effort making in their school art class, would I say yes because I’m afraid of upsetting them? No. Because I have a duty to protect my children from themselves, their lack of experience and judgement, a duty to ensure they can actually complete their ambitions safely without endangering themselves or other people (like the rescue services should they, god forbid, be needed to rescue Jessica). And at 16 she is still a child. She can’t vote, can’t have a drink and in the UK would actually be too young to undertake a Coastal Skipper course with the RYA!!

It is abhorent that a parent should say that the risk of losing a 16 year old child is better than saying ‘NO’. Parents who can’t say no to their children end up with spoiled brats. Let’s hope in this case the fate is no worse than that. Earlier in the year a 13 year old girl was put into care in the Netherlands while her parents argued about her right to sail single-handed around the planet. In this instance I suspect it isn’t Jessica that needs taking into care, but someone ought to be ‘sectioned’.

Let’s also hope that the tragic accident, on Australia’s New South Wales Coast, on October 10th where the experienced skipper and one crew member died when the boat grounded on a reef in heavy waves during the night is not an omen.

I truly wish Jessica well, but question the parenting wholeheartedly.

Anyone feel differently?

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• Australian teenager sets off on round-the-world voyage (news.bbc.co.uk)
• Australian, 16, begins solo voyage (guardian.co.uk)
• Jessica Watson’s father says solo sailing dream is worth dying for (telegraph.co.uk)
• Dutch court stops girl 13 sailing round world (telegraph.co.uk)
• Court blocks girl’s solo sailing plans (guardian.co.uk)

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1. Mike Perham to fly solo round world
2. Jessica Watson Welcomed Home
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Each year hundreds of diesel, petrol and oil spills pollute harbours, lakes and coastlines. Many of these are the result of careless refueling. Take a look at the article by Lucy Brake on Suite101.com

http://greencleanboating.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_reduce_spills_when_fueling_a_boat

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The Ellen MacArthur Trust is one of the first organisations to sign up to Harbour Exchange. Not only will you find their profile on Club House, you’ll also find it in Bid or Buy under Charities & Trusts in the Directory section.

You can support the Harbour Exchange campaign to raise £10,000 by clicking on the button below:

If you don’t know what the Ellen MacArthur Trust does, then you must check out their website www.ellenmacarthurtrust.org

Thanks to generous donations from the public, the Ellen MacArthur Trust can help young people recover from cancer by giving them a thrilling and confidence boosting experience sailing.

Ellen is an inspiration and has set a very high bar, and her charity lives up to the standards set by one of our biggest sailing heroines.

Give whatever you can by clicking on the button above.

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2. Dame Ellen to start Round the Island race
3. Release your Inner blogger – write for Harbour Exchange

Rule 19 is a brand new one and applies when the obstruction is:

• Not also a mark or ‘continuing’ obstruction
• ‘Continuing’, including if this is a mark aslo.

Part of this new Rule 19 used to be covered in old rule 18, but to be more precise about the difference between room at a mark and room at an obstruction, this new rule has been added. It is about giving room to pass an obstruction, but not room to tack at an obstruction. That has become new Rule 20, more of which in another post.

So, a right of way boat can choose to pass the obstruction on either side (provided it is safe to do so).

The outside boat must give room to the inside one, if they are overlapped. However, if the outside boat has been unable to do this from when the overlap started then they do not have this obligation. For example, if the outside boat is itself prevented because af another boat on its outside, or another obstruction. Remember a boat is an obstruction but NOT a continuing obstruction.

There is no concept of a Zone in Rule 19, so a boat could aim to overlap on the inside and demand room from the outside overlapped boat. But this only applies if there was sufficient room for the outside boat to give room at the time the overlap started. If when the overlap started, the outside boat was unable to give room for whatever genuine reason then the inside boat is not entitled to room. While overlapped the inside boat is not entitled to room and she has to keep clear.

Related posts:

1. When does the new Rule 18 NOT apply?
2. Rule 18 – when does it apply?
3. ISAF : The Racing Rules of Sailing for 2009-2012 – Amendments Effective 1 January 2010

For those that have been afloat without any news service for the past year, you’ll be forgiven if you haven’t a clue what Twitter is. For everyone else, you cannot have missed it. All the hype, all the publicity about how it will change the world, all the people out there wondering how on earth a tweet can be anything other than a ‘Priory admitting’ severe condition of narcicism.

Twitter may not change the world and you may not be interested in what a complete stranger has had for breakfast – but it can be the most interesting thing on the web.

You can get updates on what Lance Armstrong is up to – he has an amazing 800,000+ followers. Dee Caffari has a twitter, so does Richard Branson, Eddie Izzard, Jonathan Ross and countless others that really are very interesting.

The Twitterers who are the best are those that live by the mantra of ABL – ‘Always Be Linking’. They find great stuff on the web and squeeze the link down to the size of an insect and then tweet it. It really is a completely new way of surfing – find people you like, follow them and visit the sites they tweet about.

Harbour Exchange has a Twitter account and you can follow us by going to http://twitter.com/HarbourExchange

You’ll also see that on Club House there is a Twitter widget on every profile and dashboard. When you sign up for an account on Club House, you can input your Twitter details in the widget and all your friends at Harbour Exchage can automatically see your tweets.

If you are thinking… but I don’t really have anything to twitter about, think again. Find the people you like on Twitter and you can ‘re-tweet’ their tweets.

For anyone who is intersted in finding out more about this whole area, we have a FREE e-book to give away if you sign up on Club House or if you follow Harbour Exchange on Twitter. Just join Club House, request to link to Commodore as a friend, and when Commodore accepts you’ll be sent the e-book.

Couldn’t be better!

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2. Harbour Exchange Club House
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