How I Built a Sailing News Command Center from 161 RSS Feeds

Drowning in a Sea of Sailing News

I start every morning the same way: phone in hand, scrolling through a flood of sailing updates. There are race results from the latest regatta, a new foil design that's all over social media, and three different newsletters telling me about the same AC75 mast failure. I read for fifteen minutes, then close the apps with a nagging feeling—I've absorbed a lot, but I can't say what actually matters today.

The problem isn't scarcity. It's the opposite. There's so much content that the signal gets buried. Every press release looks urgent. Every YouTube thumbnail screams "BREAKING." And my ability to judge what's worth my attention evaporates.

So I did something about it. I built a custom news system using an AI agent and my own carefully curated RSS feeds. It's not magic—it's a set of practical steps that any sailor can copy. Here's how I took back control of my news feed.

Step One: Stop Scraping the Ocean Floor, Start Fishing in the Right Spots

My first attempt was simple: a daily 8 AM briefing that pulled five sailing news stories from the web. It worked, sort of. I got a digest while my coffee brewed. But within a week, I noticed the same story appearing three times with different headlines, and yesterday's news rehashed as "latest."

The AI wasn't lazy. It was fed a pile of unvetted links—official announcements, media reports, blog reactions, and clickbait all look the same to an algorithm. The fix? Start with better sources.

Build a Tiered Source Pool

I spent months curating 161 RSS feeds, but I didn't just add everything that floated by. I ranked them by credibility and organized them into tiers:

• Primary sources: Class rules, official race notices, and manufacturer announcements (e.g., World Sailing, class associations, boat builders).
• Serious media: Sailing World, Yachting World, Scuttlebutt Sailing News—established outlets with editorial standards.
• Vertical blogs and aggregators: Sail World, Sailing Anarchy, and tech-heavy sailing sites that break down complex gear.
• Bloggers and influencers: Sailors like Dylan Fletcher or YouTube channels like Sailing Nahoa—good for on-the-water impressions and personal takes.

If you're just starting, you don't need 161. Even 20 solid feeds will beat 500 random ones.

Organize Like a Magazine

Once you have a pile of feeds, don't dump them into one folder. Use an RSS reader that lets you create categories. I use Folo, but any decent reader works. My folders break down into regattas, equipment, design, and cruising. It's like building a custom magazine that updates itself.

Give Your AI Agent the Keys

The crucial part is making those curated feeds available to your AI assistant. Folo has a CLI that lets the agent read unread items from your subscriptions. That means the AI is working from a pool you've already vetted, not random internet noise. It also gives you direct links to sources, so the AI can't fabricate a URL.

My upgraded morning briefing now works like this: the agent reads my Folo unread items, filters out duplicates, cross-references details, and prioritizes primary sources. It labels items as "multi-source verified" when possible. The output is a clean list of five stories that actually matter.

Step Two: Train Your Assistant to Know What You Care About

Even with good sources, the AI didn't know my personal preferences. For a while, it kept serving me stories about the latest foiling monohull, even though I'd already read three similar pieces. I wanted more on new sails and electronics.

So I told it directly: "Too much foiling news, I want more on gear and hardware. Remember that." The agent created a MEMORY.md file and adjusted its behavior. Now it filters by my stated interests. It's like having a good assistant—you have to tell them what's annoying, and they remember.

Step Three: Sew the Fragments into a Newspaper

A chat window isn't the best reading format. So I asked the AI to turn the final five stories into an HTML page—a clean, card-based layout with a title, core facts, and why it matters, plus buttons to the original sources.

The result feels like a personalized newspaper. No more cramped text. I scan the cards, click through to what interests me, and ignore the rest.

I also used the same approach for long-running stories. Take the ongoing saga of a potential new America's Cup class. Rumors, denials, updates—each story alone seems huge, but together they're just noise. I had the agent build a living "dynamic wiki" page that tracks the rumor mill.

The page had a timeline, a tree diagram of claims, a source frequency chart, and cards for each piece of evidence with labels like "confirmed," "multiple sources," or "unverified." It even had filters by category and credibility. Suddenly, the fog cleared. I could see which claims had solid backing and which were just hot air.

Why This Matters for Every Sailor

In 2025, "slop" was the word of the year—AI-generated, low-quality content flooding the web. Sailing is not immune. There's endless clickbait about new foils, speculative interviews, and recycled press releases.

Building a reliable news system is the best defense. AI can collect, deduplicate, and organize, but you should never outsource your judgment completely. By curating your sources and training your assistant, you build a dam against the flood. Only the useful stuff reaches you.

You don't need to be a programmer. Start with a handful of feeds you trust, organize them, and let an AI agent help you filter. You'll spend less time scrolling and more time sailing.