I know you're thinking, "Colorado?" Love of sailing can come from anywhere, I guess. Anyway, to explain so my post isn't deleted as a misinterpretation of desperate "crew" trying to win the hearts of Captains out there, I do have my own boat. Granted, it's only a Hobie 18, but it's a boat and I am captain of that boat

And I won't call it a ship, I'm not that delusional.
Anyway, I wanted to say Hi as I've re-found this forum. I used to be a member years ago, back when I had all the time in the world to crew, but was discouraged at the cost ships wanted for the "right." I checked in later and found a storm brewing about what sharing costs meant. Again I left, and now it appears this has been defined and enforced upon the listings, and I wanted to applaud you. Thank you!
I feel the same way when I need crew for a race. If I want to race and have no crew, I invite someone to come along. I do NOT ask them to pay for half the registration fee, or the fuel to tow my boat there if needed. I'm the one wanting to race, and I can't do it without crew. I see no reason to charge them for my need.
Once I was subject to being paying crew. I was at Airlie Beach, wanting desperately to sail. Tons of 3 hour sails, some multi-day pack-as-many-backpackers-on-as-possible trips, and some random people charing 50-100 AUD "cost share" a day to sail the Whitsunday's. I finally found a friendly guy on a trimaran that "only" charged 25 AUD a day. I took it out of desperation. The Captain was a raging drunk, never wanted to put his sails up ("too much stress on the rigging"), got in a fight with a couple when they wanted off, and I ended up going from his "mate" to "making a big mistake" when I finally stepped ashore. Although glad for the experience, I went back home to Colorado and gave up on the idea of ever crewing again.
Here I am now, firmly rooted in my career and home, landlocked, and wanting to sail in the big blue ocean. I thought I'd have to buy my own ship, learn the tricks of ocean sailing upon it, and shove off hoping for the best (please grant me this oversimplification.) But here am I looking at this wonderful new cruiserlog where people really do take crew on via honest cost sharing. How wonderful! So at some point maybe next year I will be looking for a crew position, maybe for only 3-4 weeks the first go around (stupid desk job) if such a crew position exists for such a short time. But in the meantime I'll be happy to lurk around and maybe get to know some of you. And if any of you happen to end up in Colorado, send me a note and we can take the Hobie out, as long as it's summer

!
Again, thank you for the wonderful resource!
Brandon
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