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FrankK

Member
Hi, I just bought a sunfish for under 100 bucks so i’ve Joined the forum. I sailed sunfish as a kid and now I want to sail with my son. It is in really great shape but has been out of registration since 1991. The splash guard is painted with glitter and one of the stripes has glitter under the final coat. Pretty sharp really. It’s from 1973.
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Montana? :eek: I wonder how many Sunfish one sees there?

Looks too hilly for Flathead Lake, where, as a young lad staring at a map of the US, I always wanted to live. :)

Didn't happen, and moved to 90-feet above sea level instead. :confused:

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Yes, the picture is at the beginning of the Kern river canyon, hauling the boat from Bakersfield to Bishop, home. I guess it just wants to be a mountain boat!
 
Yes, the picture is at the beginning of the Kern river canyon, hauling the boat from Bakersfield to Bishop, home. I guess it just wants to be a mountain boat!

HaHa, I hear ya, and I thought that looked like CA... bet that road would be fun on a rice rocket, LOL. :eek:
 
I thought I recognized that road-good eye Ghost Rider and that looks like a good boat too...I've got to get my Sunfish up to some lakes in the Sierras. Where will you sail it FrankK?
 
Windy is good with these little boats... same for the Laser. One thing I've noticed here on lakes in the White Mountains, the wind shifts can be sudden and drastic, LOL. Don't know if that'll be the case where you are, but be prepared for it, otherwise you'll be swimming pronto, aye??? Don't ask me how I know this, LOL. :rolleyes:
 
Yes, I know that lake, very beautiful and if you can post pictures it would be great. How far are you from Tahoe. That's a place I want to sail-I'm in Santa Rosa about 4 1/2 hours from there. Easier for me is Lake Spaulding, right off the 80 on the west side of Donner Summit-only 3 hours from my house. Those Sierra lakes are cold though-wetsuit is a good idea!
 
The glitter is under the clear coat, the deck feels smooth when you run your finger over the stripes. It looks to me like I double posted pictures, sorry.

NorCal, I think Topaz would be great too, and maybe cheap to stay at the casino. Also there is Mono lake; as salty as the Red Sea... I know you can kayak it.

GhostRider, we have White Mountains here too. I’m guessing yours are somewhere else or you’d be here drinking a beer and talking boats already!

Edited to add: Ok, I got a little defensive about my glitter boat, L&V.
My inner five year old had to set the record straight that it is not just a sunfish that was adorned with a glue stick and glitter, but a highly valuable - factory painted - wind powered disco ball. Nearly everyone likes a disco ball, I do, but I wouldn’t pay extra for one. :)
 
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GhostRider, we have White Mountains here too. I’m guessing yours are somewhere else or you’d be here drinking a beer and talking boats already!

These White Mountains are halfway up the eastern side of Arizona, not far from the NM line... they call it northern AZ because we're on top of the Mogollon Rim, but it's only halfway up the state, LOL. Sweet mountain country though, elevation in Show Low between 6300' and 6400', depending upon which side of town you're on... farther east, peaks rise to over 11000' and they are bee-yoo-ti-ful, AYE??? Don't sweat the cold beer, I'm already pounding plenty, and we can talk boats right here, distance be damned, LOL. I always liked the country near Bishop & Lone Pine, spent some good time off in those areas during my trucking daze, 10-4??? Go to my "Laser Island Voyages" thread and click on the first link, then check out the second shot of truck camping in the Alabama Hills... awesome weekend spent there in that area, I'll never forget it. CHEERS!!! :cool:
 
Yes and no... Porter Mtn. has some effect upon sailing here, along with lesser peaks in the area... over to the east, popular Big Lake lies at 9000' elevation, with higher peaks around it, so the wind shifts can be funky, LOL. BTW, we can help ya with the dagger well problem, best to post pics of the damage or wear to your boat, there are some regular fiberglassin' hee-roes at this site, LOL. :eek:
 
Very nice looking boat. Re: black spars - my understanding is that they were part of the “Custom Edition” package. That’s our 1977 Custom Edition, with black spars, in the above photo. You got a smoking good deal on that boat!
 
Yes, and the seller said it was his own. ;)

Uh-oh, maybe it was a "hotter" deal than the OP thought, LOL... hafta register it as a "home-built boat" and slap an engraved plate over the existing HIN, aye??? I did that with my Minifish, not because it was stolen but because it had no paperwork, a minor bureaucratic hurdle & PITA, but the boat eventually got a sticker, LOL. :rolleyes:
 
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Welcome! I'm pretty new to sailing. Looks like you scored a really nice boat for a great price. I've learned a lot from the smart folks here about sailing and about boat repairs. Enjoy!
 
I suppose that i should fess up that I bought it from a kid who got it from his dads best friend, And the papers are in the mail. It hasn’t been registered since ‘91. Supposedly I’ll be getting the original title and bill of sale. AAA seems to think this is enough. The bill of sale I have in my possession is Pahthetic (I meant to spell it like that)
 
I love the glitter/flake on the splash guard. I would guess someone repainted the guard and the one stripe with metal flake automotive paint then cleared the deck to seal everything. I actually though about adding some flake to my sunfish to give it that custom look. Not the whole thing just splash guard, stripes.
 
I suppose that i should fess up that I bought it from a kid who got it from his dads best friend, And the papers are in the mail. It hasn’t been registered since ‘91. Supposedly I’ll be getting the original title and bill of sale. AAA seems to think this is enough. The bill of sale I have in my possession is Pahthetic (I meant to spell it like that)

Worst-case scenario in CA, you'll have to register it as a "home-built" boat, which means you fill out a special form and provide a receipt or two for "materials" used to "build" the boat. Doesn't have to be an entire list of receipts, I used some paint & hardware receipts from a totally different project at the old beach cottage. You pay a small fee and the DMV assigns a number to you: you go to an engraver's (think key stand or trophy shop) and have the number engraved on a thin metal plate, which you then affix to your hull OVER the existing HIN. The newly-assigned number becomes your HIN, and you get a nice shiny new vessel registration sticker from the DMV, normally good for two years with a small sailboat this length. You also get a new title to the boat, which ya toss into your safe if ya have one, filing cabinet if ya don't.

Why did I go through all this rigmarole to obtain a sticker? The Minifish I bought was a barn find, the original owner was probably dead or in prison, the boat had zero paperwork as far as title & registration go, not even outdated paperwork, so I was forced to go the "home-built" route, as if I built the Fish entirely from scratch. Had no other choice if I wanted a sticker, you understand... courtesy of ridiculous CA bureaucracy. Tried to do the right thing first, offering to pay all fees just so I could get a sticker and be "legal"---but as you already know, bureaucracy trumps common sense every time in the Socialist Republik of Kalifornia. The whole process was similar to obtaining a Vermont plate for a Honda MiniTrail which has been sitting in a barn for 40 or 50 years, no paperwork in sight... ya do what ya gotta do just to get the thing titled & registered. That's just the way it is with gubmint bureaucracy, doesn't matter if you're trying to do the right thing, aye???

When I sold the Fish to a family man who wanted to teach his kids to sail, I explained what I did and told him that the original HIN was underneath the engraved metal plate, which I had pop-riveted to the hull. Had the original HIN written down too, in case he wanted to research the boat. In AZ, it is not a legal requirement to register a sailboat this length, and I signed the CA title over to him solely as a record of the transaction. I suppose that one day, if the boat changes hands again and the new owner does NOT hear about the whole registration fiasco, and that same owner decides to remove the plate temporarily to do some boat work, he or she will be perplexed by the dual HINs which do NOT match, LOL. It'll be one of those "Mysteries of the Universe" ya hear about on late-night TV... especially if the intermediate owner had the boat retitled in AZ. Meh, no longer my problem, I had my fun aboard the Fish, and she repaid her whopping $200 price by pulling the Salton Expeditions, let alone countless voyages on San Diego Bay & environs.

I only tell you all this in case you run up against a bureaucratic wall with the Kalifornia DMV... anything can happen in that state with an idiot and globalist tool like Brown in charge. It's always better to be "legal" with a current vessel registration sticker, that way ya don't get hassled by revenue collectors on shore or on the water. Your Bill of Sale won't count for much with the DMV, I know mine didn't, which is why I eventually went the "home-built" route for my barn find Fish. Don't worry, you won't have to drag your Sunfish to the DMV in order to obtain the "home-built" registration and sticker, it's not like some DMV pogue will exclaim: "Hey, that's a Sunfish!!!" PFFFFFFFFT. As if---AS F#%NG IF---any of those fooliots would know one class of sailboat from another. Besides, you can always tell 'em you're just that good at building fiberglass replicas, LOL... WTF, tell 'em you extruded the spars by pulling aluminum stock through your teeth, like using a metal toothpick after some serious BBQ, LOL. :eek:

P.S. For anyone who questions the "morality" of going this route in the face of bureaucratic hurdles, meh, I "home-built" the fiberglass repairs to the Fish... did 'em right there in my yard in Coronado, LOL. ;)

Edit: Hey, FrankK, check out the pics of Salton Expedition II on the first page of my "Laser Island Voyages" thread... I'm probably the only nautical fool alive who has sailed the length of the Salton Sea aboard a 12' Minifish, LOL. Bad@$$ sailing venue, the Salton, most people are totally clueless about it, they never make it past the foul stench and shoals of rotting fishbones along the shore... once you're far enough out, that all goes away, and ya have the largest lake in CA entirely to yourself, with awesome desert & mountain scenery, LOL. :cool:

Note: Largest lake in terms of surface area, Tahoe probably has it beat in terms of volume, since the Salton lies in a shallow desert pan. :rolleyes:
 
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I didn't think the roadside Sunfish photo was California, because there was no smoke in the picture. :oops:

Salinity being what it is on the Salton Sea, you were probably sailing your Sunfish faster than anyone else! :eek:

Will Salton eventually become a "Playa"? :(

BTW: Lake Tahoe's shoreline is shared with NV, and is very cold for "immersions". :(

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I did see your pics of the Salton Sea, Rider. It looks like a good adventure! I have always been interested in that place, never been there. I think it is the pictures of salt encrusted ruins, that make me want to go. Maybe with this boat I have an excuse! Was it the eeriest place you’ve ever sailed?
 
Definitely the eeriest place I've ever sailed... during Salton Expedition I, a friend and I sailed the width (or breadth) of the lake, and we encountered a strange echo out on the center of the lake, very unusual because the mountains which partially surround the lake were much too far away to produce this echo. However, there was some mist rising from the lake, almost as if it were trying to form a cloud, and we think that this must have formed some sort of invisible layer which caused the echo. Almost like an inversion layer, it was really bizarre... my friend started talking about a warship that supposedly vanished or went into a time warp or something, it was much like telling ghost stories around a campfire, LOL. Can't remember the name of the ship, the "USS Philadelphia" maybe? I dunno, it has been too long, but I remember looking it up on the Interwebs later, after our expedition had ended and I was back at the house in Coronado. I must say that there's a definite feeling of traveling through time on the Salton... I even wrote a story called "SALTON TIME PORTAL" about our adventure, and my subsequent solo voyage. Be forewarned, Salton voyages are not for the faint of heart (or stomach, LOL), there are foul odors along shore and the shoals of rotting fishbones are heinous... :eek:

L&VW, you're absolutely correct, CA does share Tahoe's shoreline with NV, I was merely using Tahoe as an example because it is so deep compared to the Salton, and if it were entirely in CA everything I said would still stand. I don't think any other CA lakes come close in terms of volume, maybe Shasta or Goose Lake, but the latter also lies in two states, and I have no idea how deep it is. Salinity isn't the major issue with the Salton, it's the ag runoff from farming operations in the Imperial Valley which pollutes the lake, causing massive algae blooms which rob the water of oxygen... those blooms in turn cause massive die-offs of fish, hence the shoals of rotting fishbones along shore. Ugh, I can smell 'em now, that cr@p is enough to gag a maggot, and walking over (or through) the shoals is not a pleasant experience, LOL. There was a plan to save the Salton Sea, but that fell through due to infighting between politicians & other gubmint (water district) officials... or so I heard. I still think one plan was the best: to use pipelines or canals and pump sea water from the Gulf of California to the lake, and also "flush" the worst of the ag chemicals and cr@p back the other way. Probably never happen due to environmental concerns... so it seems the lake is destined to die a slow death, eventually vanishing from the face of the earth. :(

And it is a lake in terms of geology and physical geography, many people are unaware that a huge ancient lake with six times the surface area of the modern-day Salton once existed, stretching from what is now the Colorado River Delta in the south clear to Coachella & Indio in the north, and that lake was frequented by Native Americans for fishing & birding. Ancient Lake Cahuilla, you can Google it and trip on the results, the water was obviously much "cleaner" back in the day without the ag runoff, and the lake must have teemed with fish & birds, a veritable paradise in the desert. As with the modern-day Salton, geologists think ancient Lake Cahuilla was formed by overflows from what is now the Colorado River, though the volume may have been augmented by sea water flowing northward through breaks in the delta. Hard to tell at this point, but the ancient lake was vast, much larger than the present-day Salton, which in itself is pretty freakin' large. Native Americans back in the day could've fished the lake during winter months, when the weather wasn't so hot, then migrated to the coast to spend the summer, or even up into the mountains where it was somewhat cooler. No doubt it must have been very beautiful, just as the present-day Salton is beautiful once you see past all the problems. Unreal spot, and an excellent sailing venue, though "wind events" often occur and can be dangerous to small craft sailors. :confused:

Edit: Forgot to mention that one can still see geological evidence of the ancient lake's shoreline on hills & mountains in the desert, same way one can find seashells atop exposed and bone-dry hills like the Coyote Mountains. BTW, I quickly Googled "USS Philadelphia" and that was the ship my friend was talking about as we sailed across the lake... guess the ship was involved in some secret gubmint experiment or something, and wound up disappearing for awhile (haven't read all the material yet). No mystery there, if the gubmint and its greaseball politicians can make billions of tax dollars disappear, shouldn't be too hard to make a warship vanish, LOL. :rolleyes:
 
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