1 January 2024

By Göran R Buckhorn

HTBS editor Göran R Buckhorn has been fidgeting with the 2023 numbers.

It’s time to look how HTBS was doing last year.

Sadly, HTBS didn’t manage to beat the 2022 record numbers of 285,860 page views and 132,089 visitors. Instead, we landed on 256,170 page views and 121,731 visitors.

Looking at other stats for 2023 (all numbers are counted until 11:59 p.m. on 31 December 2023), HTBS published 295 posts, and most page views had “Home page/Archives, followed by these 10 articles:

New Rowing Movie: “Heart of Champions” (Göran R Buckhorn, 10 October 2021) – 3,473

The Oarsmen of J.C. Leyendecker: Homeric or Homoerotic? (Tim Koch, 14 March 2017) – 2,731

The Boys In The Boat: On The Start (Tim Koch, 12 May 2023) – 2,217

What Are The Odds? The 2023 Boat Races Form Guide (Tim Koch, 20 March 2023) – 2,133

The Ancient Egyptian Rowing Stroke: Propelling the Boats of Gods and Men (Tim Koch, 2 March 2018) – 1,851

Geek Special: The Ups and Downs of the Sliding Rigger (Tim Koch, 17 October 2017) – 1,756

Henley Women’s Regatta – And Saving Rowing For Women (William O’Chee, 27 June 2023) – 1,436

English Boatbuilders are Building Boats for “The Boys” Movie (Göran R Buckhorn, 15 January 2022) – 1,317

The Boys in the German Boat: Wikings at the 1936 Olympics – Part I (Julian Eyres, 24 January 2023) – 1,301

The Wisdom of Pocock (Chris Dodd, 16 February 2022) – 1,000

Worth noticing is that many of the Ten Top articles were not published in 2023. The first-placed article is about a movie, but not George Clooney’s The Boy in the Boat, though two articles on the list are about The Boys movie (the eleventh article just outside the list is Peter Mallory’s review of Clooney’s film, Rosebud’s a Sled, published on 21 December 2023). It’s also interesting to see that Julian Eyres’s first part article about the oarsmen of the German Wikings, who race at the 1936 Olympic Games and took the bronze medal in the eights, is on the list on ninth place (part II is on 16th place).

Which countries did the readers come from in 2023? Here is a list of the Top Ten countries by page views:

United Kingdom – 106,964
USA – 83,158
Australia – 13,939
Germany – 7,631
Canada – 6,077
Ireland – 4,920
The Netherlands – 3,365
France – 3,276
Spain – 2,248
Sweden – 1,763

The Top Ten countries are almost the same as in 2022. The only difference is that New Zealand fell off the list and the little rowing nation Sweden managed to squeeze herself in on tenth place – Bra gjort, Sverige!

The last post of 2023 was the 4,653rd post since we started in 2009, and since the start we have had a total of 3,221,735 views.

My warm thanks to the 2023 HTBS contributors, who one way or the other kept us going. They were: Marie Barge, Daniel J. Boyne, Ingrid Buckhorn, Lee Corbin, Greg Denieffe, Heidi Danilchick, Chris Dodd, Julian Eyres, Andrew Guerin, Gavin Jamieson, Robert Treharne Jones, Tim Koch, Philip Kuepper, Bill Lanouette, Duncan C. MacKinnon, Peter Mallory, Hugh Matheson, Bill Miller, William O’Chee, Athena Santana, Michael J. Socolow, Rick Stehlik, Ralf-Peter Stumme, Tom Weil and Thomas Wigley.

Of course, special thanks go to Mrs. B., who has supported HTBS with her technical knowledge since the start in 2009.

It’s my sincere hope that you HTBS readers and contributors will have a healthy 2024 and continue to follow us during the new year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!