Flying Scot Florida Blog

This blog has reached a little milestone that I never expected when I started it. This post is the 100th since it began in 2007. I haven't been counting but the administrators editing menu shows all the previous posts, which are numbered.

Time for a new look… for a while now I have thought that a new look was needed and this seemed a good time to update it. There are several templates available so I went ahead and changed to something new and played around with the colors a little bit. Any better?

There were two main reasons I started this thing; first was I thought the Florida District had a really good thing going but unless you were actively involved chances are you wouldn't know anything about it. Charlie Fowler served as the District Governor for a long time and worked really hard to build fleets and the District. It seemed to me that was the hard part, the easy part should be to get the word out, so here we are.

Here is Charlie leading the way on the water

The second reason for starting this was I wanted to learn about blogging and the best way to do that was to jump in and start one. I chose to start a "blogger" blog (also known as "blogspot") since it is FREE and it is geared towards a beginner who knows little or nothing about them. I certainly fit into that group.

Will anyone ever read it? I remember thinking that back when this was new. It turns out I didn't need to worry about that too much. At first readership was low but as time passed it steadily grew. Currently, the average is about 18 to 20 visitors a day and the all time high is 98 visitors. That isn't bad exposure from a site that is free to operate and own.

If your fleet or club doesn't have a website and you think it could work for you, it is easy to start, go to Blogger to see how to start one of your own. Let me know if you have questions about it.

I mentioned that the Florida District has a good thing going and the figures below tell the story. Even though the economy has been down and gas prices have been up our participation remains good:

2004-05 season = 17 boats average
2005-06 season = 19.8 boats
2006-07 season = 18.6 boats
2007-08 saeson = 21.5 boats
2008-09 season = 21.2 boats

To put these numbers in another perspective, I am contacted routinely by other clubs to see if the Flying Scots would like to participate in their regattas. We have all heard about declining attendance at regattas all around the country, this puts financial pressure on clubs hosting regattas. We will continue the practice of having our District regattas hosted by our fleets/clubs and strive to keep the costs low.

A new fleet in the making. The Charlotte Harbor Yacht Club has several members who are looking to buy Flying Scots, one already has bought one. In the past the club has not had an active racing program but they are now working toward getting an Opti fleet going for kids and a Scot fleet for adults. The prospects appear good and there are at least 10 existing Scots in that general area. The club will be hosting a regatta in Feb. 2010, I plan to attend and hope some other Scot owners will support the cause as well.

That’s it for now but I want to thank Andy Hayward, George Golder and Chuck Tanner for their regatta reports which appear frequently on this blog.