Project history from 2024
The current dinghy trails successfully piloted by the RYA were proven successful enough to become an ongoing project. The original trails were in a pdf format and there was no mechanism for keeping them up-to-date. Some of the information in them was now out of date.
This experimental project provided a delivery vehicle for testing:
- A knowledge management method for storing Dinghy Trail content in an accessible, screen reader friendly and easily editable way.
- A social test to see if the dinghy cruising community cares enough about accurate and abundant dinghy trail information to develop and maintain the content.
- How much work it is to manage this information and the volunteers who are contributing to it.
History and planned evolution.
Initial Dinghy Trail Trial – launched at the Dinghy Show in 2021 – Phase 1
The RYA initiated the Dinghy Trails project as an experiment to see whether providing members with such information would be useful to the community and increase participation in a sports activity..
The original design required user submission in a spreadsheet format which was then interpreted by a contractor and a high quality two-sided PDF was produced.
This format is visually distinctive and has very helpful detail, and
- is not editable by the user community and content and links have, over time, become out-of-date.
- the PDF content is not searchable by Search Engines
- is not screen-reader friendly (1)
- “…in a 2000 evaluation, the USDoJ reported: ‘Documents displayed by the Adobe suite of products are totally unusable by those using screen-reader technology to retrieve information from a computer display.’” from https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/putting-an-end-to-the-menace-of-website-pdfs
Dinghy Trails User Curated in WordPress – 2024 to 2025 – Phase 2
“Dinghy Trails Development Phase 2” is a volunteer-led project to update the existing Dinghy Trails by creating a technology solution to support volunteers to edit the content directly. This will enable a longer, richer, user-generated article with photographs of the launch site, useful signs, interesting places on the trail to visit and links to other things to do in the area and so on. We will experiment with new technologies to represent the route on a chart or map.
We will use this WordPress site to host the content, which is owned by the RYA, administered by RYA Volunteers and is not part of the RYA Digital property.
We will use the functionality of OpenSeaMap to map the dinghy trails, save the image for visualisation of the trail and provide a GPX file for importing a dinghy trail into chart plotters.
By way of an example of what this mapping looks like, this is the mapping for a dinghy trail from Southampton SC to East Cowes,
This map is for information use only, not for navigation.
To ensure a smooth transition from WordPress into the RYA site, we will use defined tags for the information.
Dinghy Trails integrated into the RYA Digital Platform – 2025 onwards – Phase 3
When the RYA digital platform has reached the maturity required to host links to this content, Dinghy Trails content will be linked to the main RYA digital platform.
This will allow RYA volunteer members with the appropriate accreditation to continue to maintain existing Dinghy Trails and create new ones. The content will stay on the wordpress site and will be linked through “Where’s My Nearest” and the existing links from the Dinghy Trails pages on the main website.
Business case / Benefits of doing this project
Benefits to Dinghy Cruisers
- The opportunity to maintain and use expert knowledge about great dinghy day sails and overnight passages.
- We will be able to “fail fast” on this site and learn quickly the best ways to represent the knowledge.
Benefits to the RYA
- The site we will create for the project development is not part of the RYA digital estate and therefore not subject to the constraints of the policies that surround the corporate digital estate.
- The RYA will benefit from the experiment, either by success or failure.
- If successful, we will have captured, and kept current, high quality dinghy cruising knowledge for hosting by the sailing national body.
- If a failure, an understanding that this is not the sort of information that the dinghy sailing community is prepared to self-manage.
Project Objectives
- Grow participation in dinghy sailing. The RYA are aiming to get the less confident sailor, particularly those boaters who sail 1-3 times a year to participate more frequently. It will also encourage boating returners and those who have completed an RYA Level 2 course and are looking for other than racing onto the water. The trails, we hope, will give them the confidence and knowledge to do this.
- Experiment and work with the RYA to define a method of presenting Dinghy Trail information which can be ingested into the RYA new digital platform.
- Update the existing dinghy trails with up-to-date information.
- Create new Dinghy Trails.
- Understand the appetite for current dinghy cruisers to contribute to the knowledge development and management of Dinghy Trails.
Philosophical Approach
People: This project should increase the ability of dinghy cruising experts to inspire and encourage a wider range of people to go dinghy cruising.
Dinghy cruising experts include members of the DCA, Wayfarer Class Association, GP14 Class Association, Wanderer Class Association, Old Gaffer North-West, Sailing Club experts and RYA Regional Volunteers who have experience in dinghy cruising daysail planning or an interest in growing participation.
Processes: We will operate to the side of the RYA and with the support of the RYA, and can establish for ourselves who will have authority to directly edit the knowledge on the website. Accounts on the system are not dependent on the existing RYA site and are under the control of RYA Volunteers.
We will capture the information about a dinghy trail in an editable format, and then validate the information periodically. We can make this transparent by knowing the information provider and making the ‘next review date’ clear in each knowledge article.
Technology: We will operate the site with a technical solution which will allow the RYA to ingest the content to their site when their maturity is right. This has already been agreed and WordPress is an acceptable format. WordPress delivers the content for approximately 43% of the internet (Feb 2024).
Structure: The RYA have supported the initiation of this volunteer led project, and we have support from the necessary departments in the RYA going forward. They want this to succeed as much as the users of the dinghy trails do.
To be successful we need two different kinds of volunteers – regional and local experts to provide knowledge, and some IT skilled volunteers to manage the IT.
Dinghy Trails Special Interest Group Description
Dinghy Trails Committee Description
Culture: The culture will be inclusive and we will maintain high standards of behaviour. Poor behaviour will not be tolerated. We will have a published complaints procedure. Since we are all volunteers, we will treat each other with respect and with the recognition that time given to this project is time that volunteers could be doing something else with. This should be a lovely thing to be involved with.
Initial Scope
In scope:
- The knowledge about the dinghy trails.
- Knowledge about slipways that can be used to dinghy cruise from.
- Information and links to safety management systems that the RYA recommend for dinghy cruising.
- Agreement on the grading of Dinghy Trails.
- Links to external journals, web articles or video content for a given dinghy trail can be part of the knowledge about a given dinghy trail.
- Links to externally hosted dinghy trails which are on RYA Affiliated Sailing Club or Class Association websites.
- Links to organisations who have contributed knowledge, as is true today at the bottom of a given dinghy trail pdf.
Out of scope:
- Stories or blogs about the experience of sailing a given dinghy trail will not be hosted on the site. Links out to information about a dinghy sailing experience will be welcomed.
- Advertising features (unless organised by the RYA).
Deliverables / outcomes
- Growth of participation in dinghy sailing.
- A website of Dinghy Trails in a format that can be ingested into the RYA digital platform when it is ready, using modern technology, supported by the RYA which has been shown to grow the participation of dinghy sailing.
Key dates / milestones
Feb 2024
Project proposed to the RYA during the RYA Dinghy Show.
May 1st 2024
- Project initiation completed – RYA stakeholders happy that the project can start, decisions made.
- Site established on the internet. (You are here).
- Publicity written and circulated.
June to March 2025
- Limited editors working on the exploring of the formats and technologies
- Porting over the existing dinghy trails
- Questions we will want to ask users about how they use the information.
- Exploring with the RYA the correct technology solutions within the WordPress environment to use. Decision 29th April, checked as good by RYA Legal, we can use screenshots of OpenSeaMap. We will need to agree the work instructions (there are choices to be made)
- Publicity of the project
- Gathering of the willing volunteers
- Training of the volunteers in how to edit a wordpress page (online free training is available).
March 2025 to end 2025
- Updating existing dinghy trails underway
- Creating new dinghy trails underway
November 2025 – February 2026
- Integration of the dinghytrails site into the RYA main site. The Dinghy Trails Committee will continue have oversight of the creation and maintenance of the Dinghy Trails and the DTSIG will still be involved in curating existing dinghy trails and developing new ones.
February 2026
Digital Dinghy Trails Launch at the RYA Dinghy Show