Conchy Joe wants your stories!

We are looking for stories in the following areas:

Sailing Experiences:
Stories and photos about experiences in places you’ve sailed, anchorages, marinas, or passages made through cruising waters.

Cruising Notes:
Sailors cruising on the high seas or cruising our waterways and coasts: Send us word on where you’re at and what you’re doing. How the cruising life is treating you. A photo would be nice too. We will post it in the cruising forum to let our readers know where you are and how you are doing.

Weather Disturbances:
Weather disturbances are a part of owning a boat, and we would like to hear how you and your boat might have been affected by a storm or how you prepare your boat for one. Send us letters or articles.

Maintenance and Technical Articles:
How you maintain your boat, or rebuilt a boat, technical articles on electronics, repairs, etc.

Individuals in Sailing Industry:
Interesting stories about the world of sailors out there, young, old, and some that are no longer with us but have contributed to the sport or were just true lovers of sailing.

The Caribbean:
Stories about the warm tropical waters farther south of us.

Charter Stories:
Have an interesting Charter story? In the Bahamas, the Caribbean, or points beyond in some far-off and far-out exotic place?

Miscellaneous Photos:
Photographs are always enjoyable, whether for their beauty, their humor, or for many other reasons, and we take them alone. Let us us your photo in the wallpaper section of our site. Credit will happily be given to you.

Letters to the Editor:
For those of you who are not as ambitious to write stories, we always want to hear from you about your experiences and opinions. Contact editor@conchyjoe.com for more information and questions.

Conchy Joes' Writers’ and Photographers’ Technical Guidelines:
Some of the following guidelines for grammar and syntax make it easier for us to edit and post your material:
 

• Subject matter should be about sailing and/or sailboats, or closely related. Especially about sailing in the topics, or somewhere exotic. This can be cruising, daysailing, trailer sailing, etc. These subjects are the main interest but we will look at other stuff if it is interesting. We prefer writing that is fairly objective and are not interested in articles that are too subjective. No poetry please. Sailing Jokes we like also.
   
• Articles can be about sailing experiences, places people have been, learning experiences, mishaps, fun, funny, places to go, anchorages, marinas, stopovers, passages, chartering, delivery, experiences in owning a boat in charter, unusual sailing events, origins of sailing miscellany in the world, or ..... you name it. Check with us. We like all sorts of stuff.
   
• We also like the practical hands-on stories about maintenance, rebuilding boats or repairs, fixes, remodels etc. and about anything to do with this part of boating.
   
• We want everything sent in electronic format, preferably e-mail, but discs mailed in are acceptable. PC format or readable by a PC. Single-spaced text. No bullets or numbering unless they are typed in and not put in as format. You can give us instructions for suggested bulleting but please do not put them in as part of the format, but as text. Text can be pasted in the e-mail if needed. We do not want any photos overlayed into the text, just attached photos, with descriptions for captions and/or credits typed in notes about the story. All boat names should be in italics. No quotes or capitals for words. Do not put any words in all caps, including titles.
   
• We believe that some of the best writers can’t tell a story but their grammar is great and some of the best storytellers can’t write and most of us are in between there somewhere, so we will look at a lot if it doesn’t fit into our guidelines. We’d like to see the who, what, when, where, why and how in the report writing.
   
• Only one space between the period at the end of a sentence and the beginning of the next sentence – this makes it easy for some things for our software.
   
• Single space the text, leave no space between paragraphs, and indent the first line of the paragraph.
   
• No single quotes (‘) around any words—use double quotes (“) unless it is a quote within a quote.
   
• All boat names to be in italics and capital first letter, lower case rest of letters (unless it really is unique to the name). No quotes around them and no all caps.
   
• We prefer photos/graphics with every story, although not an absolute. Photos can be sent digitally as attachments, but need to be good resolution. If you have a digital camera, then take the shots at a high resolution. If you have a regular camera, the photos can be scanned at 300dpi. If you have a large vertical photo that could be used as a cover shot, it needs to be scanned at 300dpi at an output of 8 1/2 X 11. We need 300 dpi in general but can get away with 200dpi in a pinch.
   
• And of course, we take photos alone, that are just plain great photos or interesting or funny or whatever related to sailing, boating, and all. Vertical photos for covers we love too.
   
• Do we pay and how much? We are a small free website and cannot pay for photos or stories. A lot of people just want to get published, and that is what Conchy Joe is all about. if your work is really good, we will make it sticky so it stays of at the top of a forum. Our hope is that Conchyjoe.com is your springboard to stardom!