It will standalone on it’s own, but will also be a fantastic asset to use alongside the videos.

Tim has been given the job of turning each of the videos into book chapters which has turned out to be a more monster task than he had envisaged! He was hoping that the voiceovers would just need to be adapted slightly to be appropriate for print but instead has ended up writing each chapter from scratch as he keeps thinking of more and more things to put in. Although this isn’t ideal for him, it’s great for the book as the chapters are ending up extremely detailed with even more information in than the videos! This means it will be real thorough resource once complete which we’re pretty excited about. Also, it will provide something extra rather than just being a replica of the videos in paper form.

The videos are great to actually show you how to sail, talk you through the basics to get you out on the water, and suit more visual learners. If you’re more of a text based learner the book will suit you! It will provide more thorough explanations of different dinghy sailing manoeuvres and technical terms if you’d like some things explained in more detail.

We’re taking still frames from the videos to illustrate the text, and as we’ve got 20 videos, that’s a lot of imagery to choose from. We’ve selected between 50 and 70 images for each chapter so Wiley are going to have fun squeezing them all in!

The plan is to get everything to Wiley by the end of the summer so that the book can be published next year (2012).

We’ll keep you posted on it’s progress, so WATCH THIS SPACE.Tweet

Based down in Portsmouth at Gosport Half Nelson is a 34ft Maxi sailing cruiser. She’s spent most of her life based down in Ocean Village, Southampton but is quickly getting used to her new home a bit further round the English coast.

The day begun with the essential start to any day – a cup of tea!

Sailaboat Penny and her cup of tea!

Me (Tash) and my cup of tea

We then headed out past the Spinnaker Tower and into the solent.

We were right up close to the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth

The boys spent most of the time at the helm leaving us girls to put our feet up and enjoy bobbing along in the breeze in the sunshine!

Having watched the Sailaboat videos, Tim and Nigel see if the knowledge can be transferred to big boats...!

As regulars in dinghies, cruising in a yacht is definitely different but enjoyable all the same!Tweet

We’ve been working really hard to get ourselves more well known on the ol’internet master that is Google, so more people can find and ultimately learn from our training videos. This has proved a lot hard that one might expect….This whole process/skill/technique what ever you like to call it can be referred to as SEO – or Search Engine Optimisation, and there are a whole load of internet ‘types’ that consider themselves masters in it. They’re jobs are solely working on SEO, all day everyday!

A year or so ago we knew not much more about SEO than the fact it was something to do with Search Engines. Now however we like to think of ourselves as mini experts…well maybe experts is a bit of a strong word, but we’re certainly learning, and beginning to master it ever so slightly.

With the help of our friendly SEO master that is Mark of Websites 1st we’re rising up the “Google Rankings” which we’re learning is tricky thing to do, but something that’s extremely important to an online business such as ours. The higher up you appear on Google when people search for certain things basically means the more likely they are to find you and go to your website.

The reason it’s so difficult is that there are all sorts of things that Google and it’s “Spyders” look for – these include the wondrous “meta tags” and other bizarrely termed little things that at first seem trivial but in fact are super key to the whole thing.

It looks like we might be cracking it ever so slightly so gold stars all round!

What you get if you search for How to Sail a Dinghy on Google

We’ve had the idea that we’re going to post a simple sailing ‘top tip’ every week on our Facebook page.

So far we’ve covered drainage bungs, target landmarks and wind awareness.

Become a fan of us on Facebook if you’d like to get these every week! Go to facebook.com/sailaboat and click ‘Like’ at the top of the page.

Are there any particular things that you’re finding difficult when you’re out on your dinghy? Think you’d benefit from a ‘top tip’ to learn more about that? Just let us know by commenting on this post, writing on our Facebook wall or tweeting @sailaboat_tv on twitter.

Sailaboat on Facebook

We’ve also extended the subscription length from 6 months to a whole 12 months!! This means that even if you’re not planning to start sailing for a few months, you can still sign up now, get some learning in advance done and then have access to the training videos once your season’s over to remind you of the skills and techniques!

The Intro to Sailing collection is now only £9.99, the Learn to Sail – Single Handed is £12.99 and the Learn to Sail – Two Handed is now £14.99.

If you’re an existing customer there’s great news for you too – all outstanding subscriptions have also been extended for another 6 months so you’ll also benefit from this extended subscription time.

Visit SAILABOAT.TV to sign up NOW!Tweet

The guys down at Portland were really welcoming and helpful when we were shooting our videos and now having seen the finished articles they are keen to have some to sell to their students!

If you’re a sailing school or sailing club and fancy selling some DVDs to reinforce the skills people are learning with you then get in touch! Go to www.sailaboat.tv and click on contact us at the bottom of the page.Tweet

R2D2 on the mast of a Laser

Here’s our FULL HD remote controlled camera we use to get our shots from the top of the mast and onboard the dinghy that can be seen in our training videos. AKA R2D2 he was designed especially for us by Bradley Engineering (http://www.bradeng.com/) who create all sorts of remote cameras. They’re cameras have been used in loads of different sporting events ranging from the Vancouver Winter Olympics and the Bejiing Olympics to the 2010 Ryder Cup in the Uk!Tweet

The same applies to our website – what do you like and dislike about our website? Which training video is your favourite? Have you got any suggestions for topics that we could cover in new videos? Let us know!

And finally….Sailaboat wishes everyone a happy new year!Tweet

If you select ‘New Books/DVDs’ and then hit ‘New DVDs’ at the top of the page, you’ll find us as the top 3 listed products.

You can also now see DVD specific previews on youtube:

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As we’re new to LinkedIn we’re still becoming familiar with the workings of it but we’ve just uploaded our DVDs as products which look good.

Go to http://www.linkedin.com/company/sailaboat.tv and have a look. If you’re on LinkedIn yourself why not follow us too!

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