Back in 2000, the then skipper of the Swan, Andrew Halcrow, along with the trustees, sought to involve young people in the creation of a website to document the Swan's work and to promote the commercial availability of the vessel. To this end, Ascent Software Ltd. attended at the local youth club on Friday evenings to form a web-design group. A number of young people indicated interest, ultimately with Cameron Smith and David Lewis taking forward the development with support and guidance from myself. I think it is true to say we all learned a lot about the technical issues of the time.

David and Cameron went on to form 'Mousa Web Authoring' undertaking a number of projects themselves. I then spent a bit of time working with the then skipper Andrew Halcrow, since he was very keen on maintaining the site from the vessel by himself. This was fairly cutting edge at the time as the modem communications were difficult, however it must be said that Andrew's web updates were top-notch as well as highly entertaining.

Editing the page in this technical way needs a lot of practice and technical skill and really needs to be done by just one person or editing group. The Swan now has a new skipper, Jane Brander, and a new website. The new site differs from the old principally in that anyone (given permission) may easily add content to the site, include photos and stories. What is more, no technical knowledge is required. In the spirit of involving young people, this new site facilitates the wish of the new skipper and Trust to involve young people not only in sailing the Swan, but of contributing to this record of her work. This approach to running a website (called a Content Management System) is relatively new, but very popular. After a little training, it will allow the skipper and the Trust complete control over who and what gets published here and how it is organised.

I have transferred all of Andrew's pages and photos from the previous site. Basically, any text or image content relating to 2005 or earlier, was originally Andrew's work and not mine, even if it says 'posted by Chris McGinlay' or 'Anonymous'. Everything after that relates to trips with Jane Brander as skipper - there are some lovely photos to be uploaded soon.

The next phase of this development is to customise the appearance of the site - it needs some style! Who better to do this than a group of talented young people? Currently, there are 5 young people researching ideas for styling this site. I hope you will return regularly and enjoy browsing the site.