welcome to our new Sailing Thailand INFO platform for sailors, holiday sailors, scuba divers and marine enthusiasts who are planing to or did sail the waters of Thailand. Indeed, we have here one of the most beautiful marine environments, abundance of islands and marine parks, coral reefs, beaches and countless marine life.
Here we provide a discussion board to collect first hand information regarding all sailing and diving issues within Thailand and inviting you to take active part in it. Share your experiences with fellow sailors and divers and help others to find the truly best spots for their holiday, advise others which places should be taken very cautiously and which do have a good value.
So, it is easy to become a member of this community, just register and post your story on the Sailing Thailand INFO Forum.
The internet is more widely available nowadays. Every second person is using some sort of a pad or a tab or any other mobile internet capable device on the go. Time is money so lets not waste any of it.
Here we found a good example how to manage the time better when booking a sailing course for your next holiday in Thailand. The Ocean Hiker Sailing course makes it now possible to prepare yourself in advance by studying online before you actually get there. This will safe you valuable holiday time by not having necessarily having to attempt the sailing classes ashore. More than half of the chapters of the course are for free available and more will follow.
Having a chance to peep into the content of the syllabus is giving quite good idea what you can expect of the given course before making the final step of booking it. This is for sure a pro for the customer.
The online course or e-learning option applies to all different ocean hiker sailing courses you can currently find on their site. To see more of it check out the e-learning section.
Island Cruises, one of the leading yacht charter brokers in Thailand has started a series of video presentations for the charter yachts they have on offer in Thailand. We want to feature those yacht charter presentations here since they are the best what can be found on the net. The first yacht charter presentation we want to feature here is for the performance sailing catamaran Full Steam, a rather unique charter yacht, since performance yachts are rarely used for charter. The home port of this yacht is the island of Phuket, an ideal starting point for a yacht charter on the west coast of Thailand with all charter destinations within reach during an average charter period.
More info about this yacht on the Island Cruises yacht charter website.
Have fun watching!
Sailing courses are available in Thailand in various different forms. Some are on a daily bases and others accommodate the student aboard the training yacht. To earn a beginners license as the Competent Crew it is not a prerequisite to live aboard the yacht. Still, the question is: what is actually better for the student to get the most realistic feeling and opportunity to learn as much as possible during the sailing course. I think it is easy to agree on that a live aboard sailing course can cover more than just a few hours of sailing per day over a period of 5 days. During a liveaboard Sailing course longer passages are possible, every night can be a new anchorage which is certainly increasing the chance to get confronted with different procedures and the student is getting naturally involved in daily work aboard which is necessary to keep the Yacht running and the crew fed.
If you have any experience about live aboard Sailing Courses please let us know. Just use the comment box.
Yes, when we hear the words “Last Minute” for most people it combines some thing like getting stuff discounted. And we can ‘t resist this particular attraction which comes along with the sound of the two words because it suggests subliminally to our brain: “STOP, here we can SAVE” even though we will spend in the end.
Now I stumbled across a few sites in business areas, i.e. yacht charter, I did not expect Last Minute Offers as we do readily when shop around for Air Fares or package tours to any holiday destinations.
So what happened to the yachting and boating industry? It seems that saturation might be the cause as we can observe elsewhere with different services around the globe.
However, the good thing for us customer is it’s cheaper. And it can be a lot cheaper. Some sailing charter companies giving up to 30 % discount which makes prices to us again very attractive and forces us to rethink which of the plenty available sportive activities we are going to follow up. To double it I have a very good example here for a live aboard sailing course. It means actually that I can be aboard a sailing yacht like as I would be when chartering one but getting as well tuition in how this stuff really works and all of it with 30 % discount.
Even in the tropics sailing students have a chance to get the real feeling of sailing when the weather turns a bit rough or foul. This video is obviously targeted at people who dare to have some action instead of pottering around the bay.
Please let us know what you think about it. Does it turn potential customer away or in? Is it over all inviting you for some action aboard a yacht?
Time to explore a brand new sailing area – the western Gulf of Thailand!
With only a hand full of sailing yachts available in the entire Samui/Phangan region, this is the most exclusive sailing destination in Thailand. Have a look at this video, which was taken at one single 4 day Ang Thong Safari starting and ending in Koh Tao.
Thailand is certainly not the only place where excellent Live-aboard SCUBA diving is offered . First lets agree on a definition on what live-aboard is.
A live-aboard service offers its guests to stay on board for one or more nights, unlike a day boat operation. This allows time to travel to more distant dive-sites. Normally a live-aboard operation charters for ten to thirty passengers.
This year, the Save Koh Tao Group and The Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) is implementing an ‘Adopt a Reef’ program to make local businesses or landowners responsible for the protection and maintenance of reef areas around the island. This program is aimed to combat threats to our coral reefs to protect these ecosystems and the economies and business dependent upon their health.
The 14 year old girl from Netherland will start later on from her circumnavigation from Portugal after a court released her from the guardianship of Dutch child protection. Agencies had blocked her attempts to leave last year. She plans to set out in her 38-foot yacht Guppy from the southern Dutch harbor of Den Osse. Her father Dick Dekker will join her on this last test sail to Portugal. He has supported Laura’s ambitions to enter the record book as the world’s youngest round-the-world sailor.
After 1152 days at sea Reid Stowe, 58, arrived back at the docks in Manhattan. His 70 foot schooner “Anne” set sail on April 21, 2007 and started the voyage around the world from New Jersey. Initially Mr Stowe sailed with his girlfriend Soanya Ahmad, 26, which disembarked from the schooner off Rottnest Island, near Perth, Western Australia after suspecting she was pregnant.
The family built 60 ton vessel was constructed on a North Carolina beach cottage of his maternal grandfather from Ferralite over steel wire mesh for the hull in eighteen month and finished in 1978. The design is close to the American gaff-rigged fishing schooners of the late nineteenth century.
Surin Island National Marine Park a paradise of thick jungle, fine white sandy beaches crystal-clear waters, and the most extensive coral reefs in Thailand. It is also home of the Moken Sea Gypsies. It is famous for it’s gorgeous, diverse and prolific shallow-water corals, and popular with live-aboard diving tours. It’s an ideal place to go for people wanting to connect with nature. Pristine form and beautiful, escaping traditional touristy beaches.
Plastiki proves the power of ingenuity, imagination combined with some eco awareness with creator, environmental advocate and eco-adventurist David de Rothschild at the helm.
Plastiki is a showcase of how waste can be used as a valuable resource. This modern vessel has been engineered from cutting edge materials and all available sustainable design technologies, the 60 foot catamaran, constructed from PET (polyethylene terephthalate, a recycled plastic resin and a form of polyester) makes up her super structure while 12500 recycled 2 lt plastic bottles pressurized with dry ice powder, making her buoyant enough to carry four people on an 11000 mile voyage from San Fransisco to Sydney. The unique sail is hand made from recycled PET cloth, the mast, a reclaimed aluminum irrigation pipe and the secondary bonding, 100% organic made from cashew nuts and sugar cane. Read more »
Abby (Abigail) Sunderland has bee preparing her circumnavigation since age 13. She started her circumnavigation on February 6, 2010. After rounding Cape Horn and Cape hope her yacht “Wild Eyes” a 40-foot (12.19 m) sloop built in 2001 by A.S.A. Yachts PTY, Australia, designed by Jutson Yacht specifically for sailing single-handed through the Southern Ocean got dismasted in the Southern Ocean.
She’s safe after search and rescue operation could locate her and a french fishing boat could take her aboard.
And here we have again some upcoming enterprise exploiting the most gorgeous places on the planet. But this sailing excursion has pretty much everything what the modern budget traveler is asking for. Adventure, nature and fun. And it is done with the least possible ecological footprint you can think of.
Well, this company operating of the coast of Koh Tao is actually giving their budget travelers the chance to go to the Angthong national marine park not only for a few…
Wreck 2010 will be an alternative dive site and coral/fish nursery to reduce diving pressures on natural reef areas. This project is part of a larger program being enacted by the Save Koh Tao Marine Branch. The Wreck will be constructed from prefabricated concrete components to mimic a cargo ship wreck.
This new wreck dive site is specially designed to function as a SCUBA training site and coral/fish nursery. This project will be conducted with the assistance from the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR), Prince of Songkla Univeristy, and Mohidol Univeristy International College.
Here we have a quite interesting approach of ex-cruising sailors who started a Yacht Charter Company on Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand. Based on the Competent Crew Course outline of the RYA this experienced cruising sailors added quite a few aspects of blue-water sailing and named it Ocean Hiker. The Ocean Hiker Course takes 6 days
Sunday, Sept. 27, 2009 in suburban Cainta, east of Manila, Philippines. People wade in the chest deep floodwater.
At least 103 people dead in the Philippines, the Thyphoon Ondoy causing floods in the capital, Manila, that forced thousands to evacuate their homes. It is expected that the storm is hitting the coast of Vietnam by the 30st of September 2009.
Honduras is best known for its underwater riches, particularly its vantage point to the worlds second largest barrier reef. It has a well-deserved reputation as one of the best (and cheapest next to Koh Tao / Thailand) places to learn to dive or complete your dive-master training. Your dives will show you coral reefs, yawning underwater caves, wrecked ships, and the docile whale sharks. But after you have had your fill of snorkeling and diving, you’ll find out that there is more to discover in this beautiful country.
Sailing courses are available in Thailand in various different forms. Some are on a daily bases and others accommodate the student aboard the training yacht. To earn a beginners license as the Competent Crew it is not a prerequisite to live aboard the yacht. Still, the question is: what is actually better for the student to get the most realistic feeling and opportunity to learn as much as possible during the sailing course. I think it is easy to agree on that a live aboard sailing course can cover more than just a few hours of sailing per day over a period of 5 days. During 
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Ondoy/Ketsana
Honduras is best known for its underwater riches, particularly its vantage point to the worlds second largest barrier reef. It has a well-deserved reputation as one of the best (and cheapest next to Koh Tao / Thailand) places to learn to dive or complete your dive-master training. Your dives will show you coral reefs, yawning underwater caves, wrecked ships, and the docile whale sharks. But after you have had your fill of snorkeling and diving, you’ll find out that there is more to discover in this beautiful country.