Tim, thanks for taking the time and showing the interest to help our sport and this site. As someone who only checks in about every 6 months, its always great fun to see what's going on now. Based on how many responses your thread has generated in the last few days, and from a variety of posters, I can't say I am seeing a huge drop-off, but I leave that to the regulars to assess.

What's great about this site, is I feel it is the heart and soul of Rick and Mary. They have made sailing their life, and this site is their family history, and they have invited us all in to be a part of their family. Too much change and perhaps some of that would be lost.

That said, I do have an engineering background, and spend some time with website design, and do understand your desire to modernize the forum.

What is really happening is a much larger shift of how we all communicate. From the printing press and bibles and then magazines and newspapers, it was about 400 years that print media really dominated. Then Radio for say 20-30 years (and still some) and then TV for the past 60. Just in the last 15 years, has the internet slowly taken over, and social media in the last 5, to the point where many newspapers and magazines have gone/are going under, bookstores have closed, TV has diversified to cable, and now to internet, and most people spend more time on mobile devices than with TV or books or print or even desk top and laptop computers. Incredible, massive, rapid change if you look at the whole picture.

Then look at facebook winning over myspace. The rise of twitter. (Jay I think it would be #twit . Instagram, etc. But i promise u in 2 years, while these will likely still dominate, new ones will arise, and perhaps eclipse these. Google, facebook, Apple alone have enough cash to buy EVERY SINGLE OTHER MEDIA COMPANY IN THE WORLD. Apple could buy ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX if they so wanted. Pretty crazy.

So should we radically change our known brand to chase down the latest fad? I don't know, maybe, maybe not. But I tend to like the idea of a cleanup more than a major alteration, and of course no moderation (we all need to respect each other of course).

What I do know is this site exists because Rick and Mary come to work each day and keep it going. While the rest of us may get wild hairs about contributing to the site/sport/whatever, realistically, it takes a dedicated leader, and that is Rick, and if he wants us to help him update it, then I think we will step up and do so. If he is happy with it, then I think it stands as his until he asks someone else to help out. If someone else does come in to help out, they/we will need to be very dedicated to see the project thru to completion. The last thing we would need is a half baked renovation.

Well I think I just spend a page saying nothing really, but that's part of the fun of this site. Tim, maybe you should PM Rick and see how he feels about it all.

later

Larry

P.S. Everyone stop playing on your computers and please come sail in the Florida 300 this year, thank you.