Currents will soon celebrate its first anniversary as an online publication!  And in the lead-up to that celebratory moment, the editorial team is pleased to introduce three new features to enhance your Currents experience.

As many “currently cruising” members often have limited bandwidth, BCA made a commitment when Currents went online to generate a monthly PDF that could be downloaded and read at leisure – something that also has appeal to those who prefer to sit with a steaming coffee or glass of wine to enjoy the nautical tales and words of wisdom shared by our writers.  Finding that PDF, however, has been problematic so a link to all past PDFs and older print versions of Currents (also in PDF format) can now be found in the left rail below the Events list.  Simply click on View PDF Archive and browse the archive.  Past issues are laid out chronologically, with the most recent being the first listed.

Another exciting development during the year has been an increase in readers’ engagement, specifically in the number of comments / suggestions / questions that have been generated by an article.  But until now, there has been no mechanism in place to alert the author or person commenting of those and subsequent comments.  As of this week, however, authors will be notified if someone comments on their article, and those commenting will be able to choose which comments they wish to be notified about and control how frequently they wish to be notified, be it instantly, weekly or somewhere in-between.

Drop down boxes allow the reader to choose whether s/he wishes to receive email notifications and how frequently

Of course, respondents will also have the option of opting-out of comment notification.  In order to protect the respondent and Currents from possible SPAM or troll-like commenting, you will be required to complete a double-confirmation if you wish to become part of the conversation.

In this day and age, many of us enjoy sharing “top reads” and interesting tips, tricks and techniques with the larger community by means of social media.  Thus the third new feature is the increased visibility of links to your preferred social outlet, be it Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, Stumble Upon, Reddit or email.  These are located both at the top of each page (click on the Share button) and at the bottom where each social media icon is visible.

Lastly, thanks to our webmaster, we are pleased to announce the successful launch of an application that tracks contributions to Currents that are eligible for credit (up to $70 annually) against annual membership dues.  BCA members who have had articles published since January 2015 will see that credit earned is deducted when they go to pay their dues online.  The amount of credit earned is dependent upon the length of the article published;  details can be found in Story Ideas (which also provides information about how to submit articles for publication).

This year, BCA has distributed approximately $500 in Currents contribution credits;  some members have written off their membership dues significantly, some currently cruising members have written off their dues completely.  Needless to say, the Currents editorial team hopes to see member contributions grow in the year to come!

Your Currents contribution credit is automatically deducted from your annual membership dues upon renewal

For those who are keen to know a bit about our reach, the weekly digest email goes to over 1,000 subscribers around the globe who, since January, have opened 19,400 emails and clicked through to read 7,400 articles.   Not bad for 10 months!!

As always, BCA’s Board of Directors would be happy to receive your comments and feedback about Currents.  And please do consider writing an article about your cruising experiences, lessons learned or how you are preparing yourself and your boat for an offshore adventure.  We’d love to hear from you!