Help on submitting expierence and tips

 

 

 

inyourfootsteps.com ‘experience’ is designed to collect, structures and preserve individual contributions of practical insight; and make it freely available to the entire sailing community.  We are open to all sailing ‘experience’ and know how, be it optimisations, tried-and-tested problem solving approaches, how-to information, navigation procedures, in fact anything that you believe is useful ranging from safety practices to comfort and cuisine.   All that is required is the discovery of something that makes boating more pleasurable, efficient, effective, labour-saving, safer etc, or a problem that can be avoided with some forethought or resolved in a better way.  It does not matter if it is trivial or an earth shattering revelation, if you have discovered something that helps you; share it for the benefit of all. 

The inyourfootsteps submission layout may appear very to-the-point, if not blunt what is it why address it etc.   However when you read the category logic you will find it makes sense and is an easy way to express your knowledge on a topic.   By expressing your ideas in this simple and direct format it makes it much easier for users to access information on a variety of subjects very quickly. 

When writing your submission please try to avoid highly specific nomenclature.  Nautical vocabulary is specialised to enable sailors to communicate vessel components, manoeuvres and actions with unmistakable precision.  But this precision of language disadvantages those who are new to the pursuit and it is these that are in most need of the experience transfer.  Making the complex simple is the true art of the genius and never more so than on this experience sharing site. 

It may help if you imagine you are writing your experience for a friend, or a son or daughter, who have acquired a boat and are broadly aware of common terms but not deeply knowledgeable as of yet.  If you share your experience with this in mind you will be striking the correct keynote.

Title

This is a summary sentence describing what the experience or piece of advice does.  This will appear as the experience title on the site. 

For instance ’Protecting your boat from electrolysis’ or ‘Reducing power consumption of navigation lights’.

What is the issue:

In this section please describe the particular issue that your advice is addressing. Many times this may appear obvious but sailing is a complex environment with many facets and not everybody knows each aspect, less so newcomers.  When learning new things we are often blissfully unaware of problems that are about to ensnare us or the opportunities around to make boating more effective, efficient and pleasurable.  In short we don’t know, what we don’t know.

’What is the issue’ focuses on detailing the problem that could occur, or a lost opportunity to make things better and what does that represent. 

For instance:
‘Protecting your boat from electrolysis’ experienced sailors will of course be aware of what electrolysis is, but not so the new boat owner who would be completely unaware of the peculiar phenomena so it needs to be described to them. 

‘Reducing power consumption of navigation lights’ if you have always been connected to a power utility and power conservation is a new way of thinking people that there is a major power draw in this navigation light area where efficiencies can be made.

‘What is the issue’ may appear very obvious to boating folk, but assume the wider newcomer audience who have not experienced the situation yet. The obvious is often overlooked so a sentence in what is the issue is more than important.

Why address this

‘Why address this’ helps by setting out the benefits of executing the advice or the downsides avoided. 

With the electrolysis example this would be to avoid the erosion / fatigue / failure / expensive replacement if it is left unchecked. 

With ‘Reducing power consumption of navigation lights’ the obvious upside is the reduction of power draw of a new system.  However this is an interesting example as there are secondary benefits, if not more important than the targeted power efficiency benefits, to implementing this and these should also be detailed. 

As it happens in this case the advice is to replace the navigation lights with low-power-consuming clustered LED that consume dramatically less power and have extended mean-time-between-failure reliability.  This adds a further direct safety benefit of not having single failing incandescent bulbs that cause a light failure in operation.  More importantly the advice has an indirect but very important benefit of off-putting the dangerous practice of sailing without navigation lights to conserve power. 

These are additional benefits from addressing this requirement that come from a deeper insight of the technology and first hand knowledge of living with it.  Please add this wherever possible.

How to address this

This is the advice, information, solution, approach that addresses the issue.  Feel free to fully explain your information, at length, if the subject requires it.

A picture or a sketch is invaluable in this context.  If you have pictures that help illustrate your information please click on the picture option and upload it with your tip to the site.

Two points to be careful about when submitting advice. 

1/ Please do not mention a specific manufacturer or manufacturers specific name for a product (e.g.  say vacuum cleaner not Hoover, say MP3 Player not iPOD).  We will enable manufacturers to have their say in the future.

2/ Please use your own words to express the idea and your own images.  All other works are copyrighted by default.  If it is not your original work, photograph or drawing it is copyrighted to the original creator by default.  The only exception to this is material that fall into the public domain or their copyright is explicitly disclaimed.

Never submit materials that infringe upon the copyrights of others. A simple way to express that, don’t ever use cut and paste, write it yourself, please take photographs yourself and likewise sketches. If you have permission to use another persons work please contact us with the dated permission details.  We respect the copyright of original material and material that we find has violated the copyright work of another will be removed from the site.

Please note that copyright law governs the creative ‘expression’ of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is legal to read an article or multiple articles on a topic, reformulate the concepts in your own words, and submit it to inyourfootsteps.com.

Contributor:

We welcome you to take credit for a contribution, or if you wish credit another individual or business with the submission.  Place the name here or inyourfootsteps site name and any text you care to enter such as boat name, club name etc up to 350 characters. 

If you have a business or offer a service you are welcome to place the contact details here and business URL plus a note on what is offered. 

Thank you

Thank you for reading the ‘Tips and advice’ help section.  Please continue to share your experience.  Once complete, press the ‘submit’ button and your ‘experience’ will be immediately online shortly. 

Soon we will be providing a Wiki feature that will enable any registered user to update and add to your entry.

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