With this issue of Cruising Compass we celebrate our 1,000th issue. We launched the newsletter in August 2001, 24 years ago and since then we have published and emailed new content every week, except for weeks with major holidays.
It’s hard to imagine now that in 2001 email was often through a dial-up modem and was slow and had very limited band width. At the time the only sailing newsletter out there was Scuttlebutt, launched in 1997, which focuses on the racing scene.
For cruisers, Cruising Compass was first and quickly gained a large and avid audience of cruisers who were rapidly adopting the internet, email and digital content.
Over the years, we have had a series of editors who gave their versions a voice of their own and helped us expand our tent and grow our audience. This issue will go out to 32,470 subscribers, mostly in North America but with several thousand scattered around the world.
With the advent of StarLink, subscribers can keep their subscriptions active even when they head to the remotest parts of the globe. Our software allows us to see who and where readers are opening their emails and it is always a thrill to see readers actively reading in Patagonia or the Red Sea or French Polynesia. Our tribe is certainly out there enjoying the cruising life and I want to thank you all for being loyal to and active in this life we all love.
As a business, Cruising Compass has always been driven by advertising and we want to thank all of the companies and associations –past, present and future– who are our partners and who have made this all possible.
So, here’s to you all, here’s to another 1,000 issues and here’s to fair winds and following seas.
