UK Dinghy Racing
Newsletter No 13
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Please note new URL www.ukdinghyracing.com

If you are still using the old URL, or viewing any pages with dingyrac.force9.co.uk in the title bar then you should now be directed to the new site.

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This issue marks the second anniversary of UK Dinghy Racing, the site was started in Jan 98 as an exercise is writing HTML. Since then it has gone through a couple of redesigns and has grown not only in size but in the number of visits.
Currently around 5000 people visit the site every month, although December has been a good month with above average traffic.

Although specific to the UK the site gets hits from around the world, a large number of visitors arrive from Australia and New Zealand and what often surprises me is the number of visits from non English speaking countries, Germany, France, Belgium, Argentina and many others. This month has even seen hits from Lithuania, Russia, Mongolia, Slovenia and many more, infact 48 different countries this month alone.

The aim of the site is to entertain like minded people who have a passion for dinghy racing or sailing. I have tried to keep the site as specific as possible, ie UK not worldwide although the info and chat will be of interest to many. The listings of Sailing Clubs and Class Associations are purely British so there are no huge lists of useless links to try and find one useful one.

On the question of links I have spent many hours searching for the UK sites but am sure I have missed some, so if you find any relevant ones please send them to me.

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If you know somebody that would like this newsletter why not forward a copy onto them with a brief message, and they can then visit www.ukdinghyracing.com to subscribe.

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In this Issue

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1. Exclusive Offers
2. Dinghy Racing Forums
3. Online Auctions
4. Sites of Interest
5. Advertise your Opens

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1. Exclusive Offer to UK Dinghy Racing

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I am pleased to announce that from 1st January 2000 I will begin what I hope to be a series of exclusive offers to visitors of UK Dinghy Racing.

The first offer is a Polar Fleece from MAXMarine Performance Clothing, this can be purchaced online via a secure server at a saving of over £10.00 from the regular price.
This is a superb garment, available in all sizes and a choice of colours, it even comes with no delivery charge in the UK and just a small charge for European or worldwide delivery.

Further details can be found in the store

www.ukdinghyracing.com/store/store.htm

or by visiting the MAXMarine site directly at

www.maxmarine.co.uk/dinghyracing.htm

Please try to support this offer as success will lead to further specials from which all readers will benefit.

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2. Dinghy Racing Forums
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As I mentioned in the last Newsletter, I hoped to launch some forums for general discussion on dinghy racing matters.

I have now managed to crack the cgi scripts and the software is up and running, all appears well to me but if you have any problems please contact me with the details.

To use the forums you will need to register, this is common practice for most forums and should ensure that the discussion is kept clean, honest and helpful. As an aside I will add that the information supplied will not be passed on the any other persons and will not be used by myself for any purpose either. More about this and a privacy policy will be published soon.

I have started a couple of discussion topics already, but please feel free to add any new topics or posts on current ones, the forums will only work if people come back every couple of days and join in, they are your forums so please help, advise and comment as much as you can.

www.ukdinghyracing.com/cgi-bin/Ultimate.cgi

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3. Online Auctions
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Online Auctions seem to be all the rage at the moment on the internet, with 100s of general auction sites popping up everywhere, I have even spotted people trying to sell £4000 dinghies on one site, however I am not aware of any sailing auction sites, until now!

The UK Dinghy Racing Online Auction is now up and running, split into 5 categories you can put up for auction any sailing goods you would like to sell, again you will need to register to both sell and buy, this information being used to bring together the seller and winning bidder.

You can set the duration of the auction, the starting bid, the bid increment, a reserve price and post both a description and a picture of the item. No item of sailing gear or clothing is useless to everybody, even if you don't need it any more it will have a value to somebody, so why not try to sell it.

www.ukdinghyracing.com/auct.htm

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4. Sites of interest
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a. As I write the Dart World Championships are taking place in South Africa, bet they have a great Millenium Party, there is a worlds web site, although updates are a bit slow.

www.epweb.co.za/dartworlds/main.htm

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b. Also passed on to me after the last Newsletter, by Jonathan was a suggestion that a far better site for Americas Cup info was.

www.louisvuittoncup.com

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c. The Pompey Perisher takes place on Sunday 23rd Jan 2000, as ever entry is limited to 150 boats including 50 cats. To be sure of your place you must enter before the day, you can download an entry form at the link below.

www.sailweb.co.uk/portsmouth/form20.htm

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d. The ISF have published the 2000 supplement to the racing rules, these take effect from 1st January 2000, so you will need to update your knowledge at the link below.

www.sailing.org/newrules/dec99supp.html

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5. Advertise your Open
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During the forthcoming year I plan a list of Open events, this can be class events or general mixed events, please email me with the dates and venues, with, if applicable a URL where further info or entry is available.

If you wish to send me full details for a particular class this would be great, and would speed up the process of generating a comprehensive list.

email to: [email protected]

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That's it for now, please visit the Forums and Auction site and don't forget the exclusive MAXmarine fleece offer.

Happy New Year