The Society’s first presence on the internet was in 1997, when it was hosted and managed by member Chris Jones.¹  Six years later, in 2003, I redesigned the site’s contents and look, and moved it to a new hosting server.²  Nine years later, in 2012, the website was relaunched with a new look designed by CCS member Robrecht Siera, who also hosted it for us.³  He and his team⁴ migrated over 600 pages from the previous website into a better structure on the new one, and I have been updating it ever since. 

In 2023, after another 11 years, Robrecht has produced a new design for our website, which he will host for us on a new server.  The result will mean

• The website will be faster to use. 
• It will be easier to navigate, both for people who start on the home page, and for those who find our pages through an internet search. 
• The pages will look good on small devices, such as mobile/cell/handy phones, medium devices such as tablets and iPads, as well as on large devices, such as desktop computers and laptops. 

Because of the redesign, none of the old pages could be copied over, so I have helped with the recreation of them.  Not all of the pages have been migrated, but over 1,000 pages are on the new web site.  Omissions include the 365 pages of Daily quotations from the First Voyage, and the 21 pages of Quiz questions and answers.  Many new pages have been created, including articles from Cook’s Log, and information that appears in a format not suited to our paper journal, such as John Robson’s muster lists.

There are several archives of our website if you wish to see how it looked, or to find a page that has not been migrated.⁵ 

My thanks to Robrecht for his ideas, his patience with me, and his commitment to the Society by continuing to host our website without charge.

The website address will continue to be www.captaincooksociety.com

Ian Boreham
Email: webmaster@captaincooksociety.com

References

1. Cook’s Log.  1997.  Vol. 20, no. 1.  Page 1353. 
2. Cook’s Log.  2003.  Vol. 26, no. 1.  Page 12. 
3. Cook’s Log.  2012.  Vol. 35, no. 1.  Page 24. 
4. HolonCom is a Belgian web development agency based in Antwerp.  Online at www.holoncom.eu
5. Archives of the CCS website are online at https://archive.ph/*.captaincooksociety.com
   https://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/*/https://www.captaincooksociety.com/
   https://web.archive.org/web/20220000000000*/captaincooksociety.com
   https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20220718140046/https://www.captaincooksociety.com/home

Originally published in Cook's Log, page 22, volume 46, number 1 (2023).