new look website

[paul turner]

Love the new look - but where are the photos of the vintage/AC boats? Px

[grazz]

Glad you like the new look.

Fair call on the vintage photos Paul. I clearly got too carried away with the cracking photos that Gareth Fudge took at Burton week this year. I've added two vintage photos to the home page. There was already an AC boat there, although is it admittedly obscured by ball of spray that Oli Meadcowcroft has created around his Design 8.

[StuW]

Could something be added on how to use a foiling rudder, how to tell what it's doing and how and when it could be adjusted when sailing.
I think the foiling rudder is actually a real positive to the class but I think the perception is VERY different and something which explains what they are all about might stop some of the negativity potential purchasers might have. To be honest before I commissioned SOG I was very anti as they just seemed an over complication but having used one I have changed my mind.
An update on the tuning info for Hijacks and DCBs might also encourage people to the class.

[Tim3497]

Nice work Grazz.

A few more thoughts, minor stuff:

• Maybe get rid of the old banner & logo, move the menus to the centre and leave the slider as the focus
• A different font for the menus and text - it jars a bit now with the the white font used over the images
• The mix of square slider with rounded corner photos/boxouts again doesn't look quite right
• Ditto the colour scheme vs the Gul ad! I think new colours would good 
• Can link text be a different colour, the underlining is a bit too subtle (for me, unsurprisingly...)
• Worth having a 'curated' public gallery of good, edited photos and an archive gallery of uploaded, wonky, out of focus ones...(sorry, I'm OCD about photos these days)
• ...and in a nicer format than those thumbnails - tiled format is good (https://www.exetercanoeclub.org.uk/gallery/)

[grazz]

Stu, a Foiling rudder guide is a good idea. One was written for the yearbook (last year I think) so will see if that it suitable

Tim, the tiles gallery does look nice - will have a look into that

I've also been looking at a way of providing a "Crew Finder" but don't have any ideas as yet. I was hoping that Y&Y or one of the sailing websites would have something set up to help put helms and crews in touch. There are a few sites for finding yacht crews but there doesn't seem to be anything for dinghies. A few clubs seem to have a basic crew contact address. We could continue to use the discussion board for helms maybe including crew needs in event reminder e-mail or set up a crew exchange group. Any ideas?

[grazz]

Stu

I've written a guide on sailing with a winged rudder. You can read it here https://www.national12.org/hints/winged_rudder_guide/ Let me know if there are any areas that it doesn't cover that you think it should


Happy sailing

Graham

[Chadders]

Love the website changes well done Graham and the winged rudder article is great, well explained and much appreciated even though I don't have one on my vintage Starfish I have wondered how they worked and this is the best explanation I have seen. 
As our pond at Yeadon has an  un-deserved reputation for containing disused Morrisons* trolleys and in places has insufficient water for even a short N12 rudder I will stick to  my original rudder at least on home waters.
* Other supermarkets also have trollies but Morrisons is the closest!