Recently, Russ Carrington of Action Water Sports in Marina Del Rey California sent an invitation to join his new Southern California Sailing Adventures Meetup which we had to join just in case we're in SoCal with another sail craving without a sailboat. The Southern California Sailing Adventures Meetup 'About' page starts like this:
'Have you ever wanted to go sailing but didn’t know how? Want to sail but haven't a boat? Have a boat but need crew? We are SAILING ENTHUSIASTS and you're invited to join us as we Meet, Socialize and SAIL TOGETHER!'
Southern California Sailing Adventures is just one of the most recent sailing Meetups joining 208,540 members of 548 sailing MeetUps worldwide!
Click here to find a sailing Meetup near you.
Want to sail? Sailing Meetups, like Southern California Sailing Adventujres are scattered across the planet and are connecting thousands of sailors and soon-to-be sailors with sailing adventures every day. It's one more sign of myth busting the inaccessible nature of sailing and one, simple action item anyone can use to finally check off that 'someday I'm going to take up sailing' on their annual New Year's resoution list.
In our home waters of San Francisco Bay there's a wide variety of Meetups from the North Bay Sailing Meetup in Sausalito with 2,286 members to the GotWindandWater Meetup with 1071 members in Alameda. Cross the country and search Boston and Sailing and lots of sailing Meetups pop up including The Boston Sailing Meetup Group with 1,672 members.
Get Connected....Go Sailing, how simple it can be!
As any current sailor or waterfront stroller knows, on an average weekend, if you just walk along the waterfront past any marina at least 90% of the boats sit idly, unused at their docks. What sailors tend to know that non-sailors don't is that one of the most common reasons these boats aren't going out is they can't find the necessary crew! Crazy right? The new, digital, hyper-connected world has created a confusing paradox - we have incredible social networking tools like Meetup that can connect us to more fantastic sailing opportunities than ever but we somehow are locked to the devices in ways that keep us from taking advantage of them.
So here's the advice portion - use the device less and go sailing more. An easy way to do that is to use your device to connect to a sailing Meetup group and then disconnect and go sailing. It's something you'll never regret and, if you've never sailed, you'll be wondering what took you so long to try.
The one thing we'd like to see is all 208,540 Meetup sailing members to sign up, post an event and go sailing 'together', wherever they are, as part of the Summer Sailstice celebration and help tell their story of sailing to the world.
