Boat Cards

[SVNeko]

Do you use 'em? If so, what info do you have on 'em?

[NewMoon]

A cruising photo for the background, boat name and home port, our names and dog's name, cell numbers, and email addresses. We recently added the name of our book. We have another version or two for land cruising.

[SaucySailoress]

LOL!!! It is soooo long since I had a business card - nowadays I thought everyone just gave a new mate a missed call, and exchanged numbers that way!!

But I guess when we cast off I'll probably stop carrying my Desire around, and have to revert to such quaint, old-fashioned methods too!

[micksbuddy]

Yup,
-boat name
-a decent photo of the boat
-my name, dog's name
-home port
-email addy
-phone #

Boat card's are great for the memory challenged (like me), I usually make a note on the back of cards I receive re when/where I met them.

[s/vPainkiller]

You might also add MMSI number. Convenient for calling directly to the other boat if they are in VHF range.

Scott

[ReMetau]

We have our boat name, web site, boat type with a pic of our boat at sunset on the front. On the back, we have our names and email address with a pic of us. We found that after a while you forget whose card it is so the pic of the people on the back of the card is nice to have.

[Capt Phil]

Boat name, doc #, our names, phone #, our personal boat photo as background, radio call sign, e-mail and mailing address, USCG Masters lic #. As I was in the delivery business, this made sense to hand out to clients as well as friends when we were cruising on our own. Capt Phil

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by SVNeko

Do you use 'em? If so, what info do you have on 'em?

Names, MMSI, email/website, a brief description of the boat, home port and the frequencies we monitor, with a graphical background that is very close to the colours of the topsides and the cove stripe.

I do graphic design for a living, so I might have an insight on what is likely to be memorable.

[svBeBe]

Boat Cards are used frequently around the world, mostly within the cruising community. They are also used with officials, marinas, and local people you meet.

Be careful about putting a Winlink or a Sailmail email address on the card. If you see the attached, you will see how we handled this. Cruisers and Sailors know the terms Winlink and Sailmail and understand when to use this email address. Since we omit the "@" and the domain name, all of the people who you do not want sending emails to your SSB email account will not understand it and will not use them...problem solved.

I assume that you know what the signal flags stand for.

Bill

[nhschneider]

We deliberately leave our home address off of our cards - if the card should fall into the hands of a criminal type while we're out cruising, they would have good reason to suspect that we're not at home. Our cards also have a small graphic of our yacht club burgee.

Fair winds and calm seas.

[sv Winterlude]

We have all the normal info as well as a photo of the two of us on the front of the card -- the background is a photo of the boat with blue water to one side for the info and an inset photo for us. The photo of us is small, but we get lots of comments that it's a good idea because as anchorages go by, we tend to forget what the people look like, even if we recall the boat name.

[Greg4cocokai]

As we have our daughter "Coco's" age on our boat cards, we update every year with a new background photo. It takes me 5 minutes to do this in MS Publisher and we print them out underway.

Cheers

[KDH]

We did not have time to get any boat cards before we left on our cruise and have wished, many times, that we had some. All the friends we made had them and it would have been much easier to exchange info. You will probably need more of them than you think.

[zeehag]

i dont have cards--anyone interested or interesting will find my name and boat name on a tissue or paper in their hand , if need arises....

[Triton318]

A cool deck I picked up somewhere; they have WWII era ship silhouettes on the back...hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades with numbers on the front. Yes, we use them. Euchre and spades mostly. And cribbage too.