Letter to Our SnipeToday Readers

Dear SnipeToday community,

Effective today, November 4, 2024, we are resigning as your editors. We’ve really enjoyed the past 13 years of shared discussions and news, but due to many factors it is time to move on.

We started SnipeToday in November  2011 with the goal of creating “A Site for all Snipe Sailors.” Since then, we have tirelessly hiked many upwind legs and surfed down many waves to make all sailors welcome and share news from around the Snipe world. In addition to timely results from almost 3,000 regattas, we published fleet news. We posted jokes (including the legendary April 1st stories), and opinions—even when they were different from the official ones. We encouraged debates about promotion and Class Rules. Other popular categories include: Articles from the experts, the famous 14 questions, and SnipeYesterday.

We started the site, but your contributions brought it to life. Out of almost 8,000 articles, 5,700 were posted by the SnipeToday Editor; less than 500 were written by one of us. And each week, the SnipeToday Digest went out to more than 600 subscribers. Our common language is the Snipe language, and we thank you for submitting your stories and opinions and race results from the wide world of Snipe. 

In 2022, SnipeToday merged with the official Class site, snipe.org. The goal was a single site for both official communications and daily news/opinions. At the time, we wrote: “As your editors, we want to assure you: We aren’t going anywhere. We eagerly await your articles, news, photos and videos, because we want this new site to continue to represent as many sailors and fleets and countries as possible. Non-official content will live in the Exchange of Views section, where differences of opinion are strongly encouraged. Meanwhile, Official Communications from the Commodore and other board members, as well as rules and official documents, will live under “The Class” menu.”

Our goal was to remain independent. But conflicting views about how the class should be portrayed, as well as new jobs and other demands on our time, have made it necessary to end our involvement with SnipeToday. We will miss our interactions with readers, as well as our tiny but passionate editorial meetings—though we will of course still meet up at regattas whenever possible.

Communication is the glue that holds a family together, and we like to think that we’ve helped both educate and entertain you over the past decade. Our class needs open, international communication now more than ever, so we’re hopeful that someone will step up and continue the work we’ve started—or even start something completely new, as we did 13 years ago. Either way, we will continue to stay in touch with all of the friends we’ve made over the years and to post our thoughts about Snipe sailing.

We would like to thank the National Secretaries, Fleet Captains, regatta organizers, and media officers, as well as each and every sailor who submitted a Snipe story. It was a pleasure to publish them and to share the same passion.

But above all, thanks to the loyal readers of SnipeToday, who have visited, commented, and appreciated the site and its contents for the past 13 years. You kept us going.

Yours in Snipes,

Pietro Fantoni (Moruzzo, ITA)

Carol Cronin (Jamestown, RI)