Fiona Harper - Cruising Entrepreneur

by Nancy Knudsen on 23 Aug 2008 For some cruising sailors who have left land-bound life behind, a relaxed cruising life of sailing from port to port, from season to season, is enough. For others, well, you can't keep a good entrepreneur down, and there are those that seem to be able to enjoy the cruising life and build a business as well - one of those is Fiona Harper, who's just launched the very first Australian Marinas Guide.

I caught up with Fiona recently to ask about her project. Fiona has been sailing ever since, as a roving 18 year old, she hitched a ride on a yacht in Broome in Western Australia, and fell 'madly and passionately in love with sailing.'

For many years after that chance experience, she worked in the travel and marine industry, but sailing was her sport - and her passion - as well. She has already clocked up 30,000 miles in the Asia Pacific region.

For the past four years she and her partner John have been living onboard and sailing around the coast of Australia on their Alden48 Ketch Nilubon, having departed from Fremantle in November 2005.

Sailing around the coastline of Australia, she found that it 'just wasn't easy to find out where the marinas were.'

As they travelled to unfamiliar waters, they discovered that it was only by word of mouth that they could find marinas, and Fiona soon realised that here was a business opportunity.

'I'm a writer and love to write so it seemed a likely project to get involved in.'

The original idea was to produce a glossy-paper Marina Guide with loads of pictures and stories of sailing and boating interspersed with marina information. However, there were two factors that mitigated against this for Fiona:

First, the cost of a quality production for an unproven product was a major factor.

Then there was the challenge of keeping it up-to-date - difficult to do with a paper based guide, particularly in an industry expanding as quickly as that catering to the marine leisure market.

'So in the end, I decided to make the Guide completely on-line.'

In January 2008, she got seriously to work, and in the process, converted the forward cabin of Nilubon into an office during a period when they were berthed conveniently on the Gold Coast.

'My office is tiny,' says Fiona, 'but works perfectly well! The hatch slides open when the sun is shining, and as long as birds aren't sitting on the mast and pooping, it's a great work space.'

When I look sceptical, Fiona protests. 'Don't laugh,' she insists, 'a crow sitting on the mast actually pooped on my shoulder and desk!!.

It wasn't all 'smooth sailing' however. Working 10-15 hours a days for many months was the easy part. Other people let her down sometimes, but, she has focussed on creating a user-friendly, technically sophisticated site, particularly in the mapping area, which seems to work very well. In its infancy still, more and more information will be added as the site develops.

However, Fiona is already encouraged by the response: 'Feedback has been really positive within marine media and boaties who love the idea. While the site is now launched and live for use, there is still a lot of work required by me to bring it up to the standard I envisage.

'Eventually trip planners will encompass the entire Australian coast and anchorages will be included in all the popular cruising areas. There really just is not enough hours in one single day for me to accomplish everything I want the site to be.'

Whether you're a sailor who ventures away from home, a long range cruiser who may be on the way to Australia, or a marina operator, check out the newly launched site at www.marinasguide.com.au and you'll see that, particularly in the 'Map' section, it already works excellently.

Marina Operators are encouraged to support the site by upgrading their listing for the modest fees that are asked. If I am right, soon the question to ask won't be 'Can I afford to be in this Guide?', but 'Can I afford not to be?'