FAQ
Link Requests
Kudos
Advertising
Disclaimer
History
FAQ
Link Requests
Kudos
Advertising
Disclaimer
History
Boating in Canada is one of the oldest and most comprehensive boating information sites on the Web. The personal site was created in 1995 by Pat Drummond, member of the Ontario Sail Association, Canadian Yachting Association, Thousand Islands Yacht Club, and Ottawa Power & Sail Squadron. Pat has been a sailor, powerboater, and paddler, cruising the Rideau Waterway, Great Lakes, Thousand Islands, St. Lawrence Seaway, New York Barge Canal, Chesapeake Bay, ICW (Intracoastal Waterway), Florida Keys, Bahamas, the Virgins and Grenadines. (Plus hopping anything that floats at any time in other places!)
Boating Laws and Regulations
Please ask the appropriate government department. I do not answer questions about government laws or regulations. Our regulation summaries are for convenience only. If you want opinions, we have a great bunch of boaters who discuss boating stuff online - post a question in the Canadian boating newsgroup <can.rec.boating>. Read about newsgroups.
Read our Canadian Boating News blog
boatingincanada.blogspot.com/
Follow us on Twitter
twitter.com/BoatingInCanada
Advertising
This site sells advertising to a few solid companies that we think boaters might like. This help us continue to bring you the best boating information. More...
Using our Information
You may LINK to anything on this site without asking permission. Of course, I always appreciate a note about what you linked to. Please note we use a "subdomain" of our web host, NCF.CA. Only pages with URLS that begin with http://boating.ncf.ca/ are part of this website. Please read our copyright page.
Privacy
I do not collect any personal information on this website. I use the google-analytics.com service that collects general statistics about visitors. If you email me, I may use your email address to reply, but I do not save it and do not share it. Be careful if you leave this site using any of our external links.
Before buying a boat, read "Buy
a Boat with Confidence", written by Doug Dawson, to avoid the pitfalls of buying a used boat. Follow his instructions and tips so you don't buy a lemon!
Submissions
If you have something to contribute, please share it - cruising information, diaries, or just tips. I always welcome articles about a cruising Canadian waters! If I use it, I provide a byline but no compensation. This is a personal site without commercial support. But you become a published author!
Read about our Kudos and awards, from magazines and boating associations to the Coast Guard and a poll.
Letters to Pat is a sample of boaters' comments and questions from around North America.
Linking to our site will help the search site rating of your site! That means more visitors to your site! (Our site appears at the top of Google searches for many boating subjects!) To add a link to our site, just get a free logo. Do NOT link to any images on our Site - copy them to your own Web site and add a link from the logo to http://boating.ncf.ca/. Here is an example of a simple text link to our site:
Boating in Canada is a compendium of information for Canadian boaters. It contains the information you need to get started - summaries of regulations and licenses, news, boat shows, cruising, marine weather, "The Canadian Boating Index", government directory, boating discussion, humour, and lots more.
Boating in Canada<p align=center><a href="http://boating.ncf.ca/"><img src="boatingincanada.gif" width=165 height=59 alt="BoatingInCanada.com" border=0 align=left hspace=14></a>
<strong>Boating in Canada</strong> is an information resource for Canadian boaters, with news, boating discussion, "The Canadian Boating Index", boat shows, cruising, wet humour, and more.</p>
Boating in Canada is an information resource for Canadian boaters, with news, boating discussion, "The Canadian Boating Index", boat shows, cruising, wet humour, and more.
I do not provide links to commercial sites for free unless I know you personally or I owe you lunch! I provide free links to useful boating information expecially cruising articles. No page? Just send me your information. I will create a page with full credit for you (and a spam-safe email link if you wish to receive feedback). I am always happy when people let me know that a link is out-of-date or I've made a spelling error!
Display advertising in this site can reach thousands of boaters for pennies a day! Contact us to get started.
The information is provided as a resource for any individual who finds it useful. I accept no responsibility for the accuracy of the information or any misuse or damages caused by its use.
Please ask the appropriate government department about their regulations! As governments finally start putting information online, I will be deleting all but summaries from this site. If you want boating information ask in the Canadian boating newsgroup.
This is a personal web page, and all information is provided by me and other boaters and teachers who have agreed to let me include their information on this site. It does not constitute professional advice or represent any company, commercial interest or government.
I have written simple summaries of some boating regulations, but you should contact the government or police for detailed information about laws and regulations. I update this site weekly but rarely have time to check links, so I appreciate anyone who lets me know if links have disappeared or moved. I am not responsible for the contents of any of these off site pages.
I promise to do the best I can to update the site and still have time for boating! I apologize for the sad state of design, but the information takes priority. Besides, dialup visitors love how fast the site loads. <grin>
If you find this site useful, please tell your friends or boat club about it. Please ask marine business to ADVERTISE here and keep us on the Web - they will reach thousands of boaters for pennies a day.
This site began in 1996, when there was little boating information on the Web. Neither the government, who created the boating regulations, nor organizations who had taught boating classes for decades, wanted to provide information on the Web. Most boaters didn't take classroom courses (operator cards were not on the horizon then), nor had the patience to sift through the Canada Shipping Act, but they still wanted to know the basics before buying their first boat. And so it began.
Of course, buying the right boat is now easier if you read "Buy
a Boat with Confidence" written by Doug Dawson. Read this before
you buy a boat! Don't buy a lemon.
We were testing new Web service at our local community network, so I took a huge pile of boating notes and began typing. Our local NCF provided a built-in audience. Getting listed on Yahoo.com brought visitors. Then number of visitors mushroomed as millions got connected.
This site was originally all text, developed for typical home computers using Windows 3, Trumpet Winsock software,using 9600bps dialup connections with Lynx or maybe the latest - Mosaic browser! Photos were added much later. We tested early Cascading Style Sheets using the HTML 4.0 standard from W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). It is accessible to all computers, Web browsers, display sizes - even Blackberries and Palms.
In early 1998, I proposed the Canadian boating newsgroup can.rec.boating to the "can" level news authorities, to provide a forum for answering the huge number of questions I was getting in my mailbox. I didn't know the answers! The newsgroup was created in June 1998. The discussion has always been very active and attracts a different audience than other boating newsgroups. It has the lowest "signal to noise" ratio of any group ever belonged to! Chris Lewis of ONAG kindly agreed to auto-post the newsgroup FAQ every few weeks to keep the group junk-free. He later agreed to "mung" my email address in the group. As the unofficial "mom" of this unmoderated group, I post a "humour award" if someone makes me laugh out loud!
I hope you'll have a good time here. Keep your bottom side wet and happy sailing! -- Pat Drummond, webmeister
