OCC CRUISING INFORMATION RESOURCES

The OCC Forum
All new OCC cruising information in 2015 and thereafter is posted on this Forum. All the OCCs legacy information about less frequently cruised areas is now included in the Forum. OCC members may submit information directly onto the Forum. The Forum manager (Simon Currin) is informed of new posts and checks them before publication. When information is published under a topic (in this case regions of the World) all ‘subscribers’ to the topic are informed. The Forum is searchable. This is useful to find place names. Please contribute short or longer posts to the forum to keep this information about our favourite places (and also about less favourite places!) up to date.

OCC Port Officers Information.
This is a separate resource, held on the members only section of www.oceancruisingclub.org . It is and will remain available to OCC members only as a benefit of membership. The locations of OCC Port Officers (approx. 180 worldwide) are available to the public. Please remember to contact out Port Officers when you are in their part of the world.

Flying Fish Archive
The Flying Fish Archive dating back to 1991 has been indexed by cruising area and is available on the open section of the OCC site under ‘Cruising Information’, ’Flying Fish indexed by area’. This covers first hand accounts of cruises on most of the navigable waters of the world. What better way is there to discover the experiences of those who have been there?

OCC Members’ Websites
The OCC web site includes a list of members’ websites. Many of these contain useful information for anyone following in their wake. Our attempts to index these and provide links under the. Countries described have not yet been fully successful. A few of them are linked to pages on the Forum. If you have a website that provides information to other in the OCC planning to follow in your wake, please make a post in the forum to provide links to the countries you cover. The search engine on the Forum will then direct people to your site.

The OCC Sponsored Cruising Information Community. (CIC)
The cic.oceancruisingclub.org site is available to OCC members only and will shortly be shut down losing any legacy information that has not been transferred to the Forum. Information on the less frequently cruised areas has been transferred. Information on more frequently cruised areas is still available on the CIC site but will be lost when the site is closed down.


Cooperation between the RCC Pilotage Foundation (PF) and the OCC.
The objectives of this arrangement are as follows:

1.   Members of the RCC and OCC to benefit from cruising information gathered by both clubs enabled by an exchange of information between the OCC and the PF.

2.   Members of the OCC who desire to have their cruising information published to have access to the PF’s management and publishing expertise,

3.   The PF to have access to OCC cruising information when seeking information about specific parts of the world. Permission will be sought from originators before any information is included in commercial publications.

4.   The PF to request information from OCC members and Port Officers when seeking people with knowledge of specific areas and to seek assistance from OCC members in the management and publication process.

The RCC Pilotage Foundation
The PF publishes 16 pilot books through Imray, 2 with Bloomsbury and 2 with On Board Publications. There are a further 3 self-published books and 10 pdf downloads. Each publication has an author or editor. Any incoming reports relevant to the area covered by the publication are sent to the author by the PF Information Manager. Existing books are updated on a regular basis. OCC members should be encouraged to contribute to the review process by sending information to the PF Information Manager at info@rccpf.org.uk . From time to time the PF may ask the OCC to seek out members with experience of an area in order to contribute to revisions or new publications. OCC members may wish to use this as a route to publish.

In addition, ‘Passage Planning Guides’ are held for many commonly used ocean passages. At present these are map based with pins showing where port information is held.

Where new guides (printed books, e-publications or web based passage planning guides) are planned or major revisions undertaken, a request for OCC members to contribute might be sent out via the OCC monthly email bulletin. The key resource for a new guide would be the appointment of a new managing author/editor. Some OCC members might enjoy taking on the role of editor or author of a PF publication.

Initial contact with the PF is best through info@rccpf.org.uk . Thereafter a direct contact can be set up between the relevant people.