Help Topics
Table Of Contents
- About The Ocean Cruising Club New Cruising Information Website
- Logging on and Finding Cruising Information within the website.
-
The Ocean Cruising Club sponsored Cruising Information Community (CIC) Co-operating Cruising Clubs Website
The Commodore of the Ocean Cruising Club undertook a survey of what our members wanted and expected from the Club in 2007. One of the responses was that the Club should continue to improve the web site. He also received responses that we should do more to foster our sport for all participants – not just members of our own Club. As a way of meeting these expectations, we have over the past two years carried out a major exercise to create a Cruising Information Web Site that will be made available to other Cruising Clubs in addition to the OCC. Much of the material will be available to the public to read but you will have to be a member of the OCC or other CIC member club to place information on the site.
The scope of Cruising Information on this site is intended to cover:
1. Pilotage information in out of the way places where cruising guides are inadequate.
2. Enough information to get you into a country or remote island if an ocean passage maker has to divert there before obtaining local cruising guides.
3. Recent information of specific value to long distance cruising yachtsmen, bearing in mind that the information in printed guides must be at least six months out of date due to the editing and printing process.
4. Information of specific value to long distance cruising yachtsmen in areas where cruising guides exist:
- Places of special interest –don’t miss this place because…
- Anchorages, especially in these days where most coastal yachtsmen go marina hopping.
- Places with recommended facilities.
- Places to leave you yacht unattended for a period of time.
- Local regulation for foreign visitors; what to do if you want to extend your stay in a foreign country, how to import spares ...
The project has now reached the point that it needs to be ‘primed’ with information so that testing of the sites functionality can be completed. We now need your help! Entering information is easy and can be done directly on line by members of Cruising Clubs which have agreed to participate in the Cruising Information Community.
If you see anything you don’t like, please change it! The site uses wiki software (as in Wikipedia) so, if your are logged into the site as a CIC Club Member you may make changes. If you are a visitor to the site, without the user name and password needed to log in, please use the Contact us button at the top or bottom of the page. The ‘moderator’ responsible for that cruising area will be made aware you have made the change and will review your changes. If you think something should be deleted click on ‘Flag for deletion by moderator”. This will notify the Moderator responsible for that Cruising Area that you recommend the deletion.
The Ocean Cruising Club is most grateful for any help you are able to give us to get this major new project acceptable for general use.
Please follow instructions in the help files to access the information and please email me, cis@oceancruisingclub.org with any comments to improve these help files or about anything else on the site!
George Curtis
Vice Commodore
-
Finding Cruising Information within the website.
To enter the site:
As a Visitor to the site, click on ‘Visitors’, click on ‘Terms and Conditions’, click on the box that you accept the Terms and Conditions, click on ‘Browse the site'.
As a member of a Club that has joined the Cruising Information Community, click on ‘CIC Club Member’, enter your user name and password, click on ‘Terms and Conditions’, click on the box that you accept the Terms and Conditions, click on ‘Log In’.
Email cis@oceancruisingclub.org if you have lost you password or if, as a member of a CIC club, you need to be allocated a user name and password in order to log in.
Index of Cruising Areas
On the next screen you will see, beneath the photograph, three blue Tabs, labeled Cruising Areas, People and Articles and a blank white ‘Search’ box in which you may enter, for example the name of a Place, of a person or of a yacht. The site will return whatever information it holds that matches your search criterion and you may click the entry which most interests you to be taken straight there.
Alternatively, click the Cruising Areas or Articles tabs. If you are a member of the Ocean Cruising Club, you will also see a People Tab giving contact details and experience of other members.
About Cruising Areas
Cruising Areas are fundamental to the storage and retrieval of information within the CIC site. They are named after countries, parts of a country, off-lying islands, oceans and seas.
A Coastal Cruising Area corresponds to a country or an off-lying island. We hold information on the flag, the currency, the telephone code and certain other information of use to the cruising sailor. Some countries are then divided into smaller Cruising Areas. We hold relevant information such as Ports of Entry and Places to leave a yacht for an extended time for Cruising Areas. Cruising Areas have been pre-defined and cannot be changed except by the administrator. The Map on each page will show stars corresponding to the Locations held on the site for that area. You may zoom in on the map to see greater detail but be aware that many of the locations are approximate.
Within a Cruising Area the website holds Locations, Reports, links to relevant Websites and links to relevant Articles which have appeared in the OCC journal, Flying Fish.
OCC Members will also be able to see Port Officers, Members who either live in the Cruising area, or have experience of the Cruising Area or intend cruising there and, finally, any Dockage which is being offered.
Oceans and Seas (for example, the Red Sea) can have several states on their shores and are treated slightly differently. The Map on each page will show stars corresponding to all Locations held on the site. Some readers may prefer to find information by zooming in to see the locations covered in reports across their sea of interest.
Finding information on Cruising Area Pages and on Locations within them
Click on the Cruising Areas Tab. You will see an alphabetical list. Cruising Areas that are parts of a country appear in the alphabetical list in their own right and also in an indented list immediately below the country name. e.g. Australia (Including Ashmore Reef, Tasmania, Whit Sunday Islands, New South Wales, Queensland, Northern Territory, Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria)
Find the Cruising Area you want in the alphabetic list and click the name.
We use Google Maps to show the geography of each Cruising Area. Locations that have been defined within Reports are shown by a gold star on the map, which may be zoomed for greater definition. Clicking the star will display the name of the Location selected and clicking the name will take you to the Report in which it is mentioned. OCC Port Officers are shown by blue icons and these may be clicked in similar fashion.
Alternatively, click the Locations button to see a list of all Locations mentioned in the various Reports for the Cruising Area. Some reports span more than one Cruising Area so some locations on this list may lie outside that Cruising Area. Click the name of any Location which interests you to be taken to the Report which describes it.
Reports may be of three types:
A Place Report usually describes a single Location. This could be a port, a harbour, anchorage or island. However sometimes it makes sense to include a second or even a third Location in a Place Report, - for example, there are two marinas in St Malo, N France and both are mentioned. Each and every Location MUST have a Lat/Long to define its position. Many of these are approximate, and should not be used for navigation.
An Area Report describes a number of Locations. As an example, see Faro Lagoon in Portugal, which has 4 named Locations and Langkawi in Malaysia which has five. A Passage Report covers at least two Locations but usually many, more. A Passage Report may well span several Cruising Areas. When it does the Report title will appear under each of the Cruising Areas it covers. Consequently, all Locations mentioned in the Passage Report will show in the Locations list, even if they fall outside the Cruising Area being looked at.
Below the map certain Cruising Area Information is shown.
Under the heading Cruising information (for all related Cruising Areas) are some 12 items; these apply to all Cruising Areas within a Country.
Under the heading Cruising information (specific to this Cruising Area) are a further 9 items, applying to that specific Cruising Area.
About Articles
Under the Articles tab you will see the archive of the OCC journal Flying Fish dating back to 1991. These articles describe first hand experience of cruising in most of the navigable waters of the globe. They may be shown by volume, may be sorted by cruising area or sorted by certain headings. Links to the websites belonging to members who are now or who have been recently cruising the world are included here.