Sailfish/Sunfish Identification Help

[Kirkn]

First post here.

When I bought my house the new neighbors gave me a Sunfish and a Sailfish.
The Sailfish has been used regularly as a fishing platform/kayak/SUP. It appears to have all of its hardware and rigging. I can't seem to find the list of hull number manufacturing years. My hull number from the brass rudder mount is 2332.

Can someone please help me out on the year of manufacture?

The Sunfish dies not have the serial number on the rudder mount, or anywhere else. Is does not have a storage compartment and it has the old style rudder hardware. No pictures at this time, but it appears to be dark green and original but very dirty top.

Anyway any help would be appreciated. I will get pictures of the Sunfish when I go back down to the water.

 

[Kirkn]

Okay, I answered own question. I was able to open the document and see that my Sailfish is a 1959.

 

[beldar boathead]

A thread about a similar Sailfish on here a few months back estimated the year to be approx 1959, the first year of Fiberglass Sailfish production. The lack of a metal edge is a clue that it’s an early ‘glass Sailfish.

 

[Mama H Chicago]

My sailfish that I just got is also I believe a 1959. Her number is 677 though. Yours might be a 60? What document are you referring to? I’m looking for the sailfish version of the great Sunfish identification guide and I can’t Seem to find it.

 

[bhm]

You may mean the 'Sunfish timeline' document. I believe that includes all of the Alcort products, including the Sailfish, and that the serial numbers are unique, i.e. all the Alcort boats that have a serial number at all are in a single numerical order by serial number regardless of which type of boat they were. So based on that, your boat #2332 is indeed from 1959, having a number between 2000 and 2500. On this site, you can get to that document by clicking 'Resources' above, then 'Sunfish history' on the left, then 'Manufacturer history'. On other sites like Facebook, people often just post a link to a copy of that document in Germany somewhere, because you can get to it by one link that way, while on this site you have to click three times.

https://www.sunfishklasse.nl/documenten/Sunfish%20Timeline.pdf?fbclid=IwAR12nS6XtbmU4zDP63pKbPhOTTHa4bRTGYkrmaeA4kpRxrNS7bdnzpY6elk

 

[Mama H Chicago]

You may mean the 'Sunfish timeline' document. I believe that includes all of the Alcort products, including the Sailfish, and that the serial numbers are unique, i.e. all the Alcort boats that have a serial number at all are in a single numerical order by serial number regardless of which type of boat they were. So based on that, your boat #2332 is indeed from 1959, having a number between 2000 and 2500. On this site, you can get to that document by clicking 'Resources' above, then 'Sunfish history' on the left, then 'Manufacturer history'. On other sites like Facebook, people often just post a link to a copy of that document in Germany somewhere, because you can get to it by one link that way, while on this site you have to click three times.

https://www.sunfishklasse.nl/documenten/Sunfish%20Timeline.pdf?fbclid=IwAR12nS6XtbmU4zDP63pKbPhOTTHa4bRTGYkrmaeA4kpRxrNS7bdnzpY6elk

So I think Skye, who is the dimensions of a SS MK2, perhaps has donor hardware on her. The rudder plate has 677 on it, a number that per the document indicates 1954. Very interesting!

 

[signal charlie]

Sunfish serial number stamping or tagging doesn’t appear until the 1960 model with the introduction of the fiberglass hull, which is also when the fiberglass Sailfish was introduced. But who knows how long they were developing prototypes? Very interesting.

My guess is that the early serial numbers listed in the Evolution of the Sunfish (old yahoo group Sunfish_Sailor, now SunfishSailor groups.io Group)
document, up to about 2500, were guesses by the yahoo group Admin Wayne and The Usual Visitors. Some 1950s boats had serial numbers on their invoices but not engraved on the hull/parts.

We found no hull numbers on ZIP

Age doesn't matter.

 

[bhm]

So I think Skye, who is the dimensions of a SS MK2, perhaps has donor hardware on her. The rudder plate has 677 on it, a number that per the document indicates 1954. Very interesting!

Can you post a picture of the rudder mount showing the '677' stamped on it? If I'm following what Signal Charlie just posted, I'm thinking that this might be a significant early landmark in Alcort industrial archaeology, proving that some kind of numbers were indeed stamped into some of the gear, significantly earlier than the four-digit numbers circa 1960.

 

[bhm]

Sunfish serial number stamping or tagging doesn’t appear until the 1960 model with the introduction of the fiberglass hull, which is also when the fiberglass Sailfish was introduced. But who knows how long they were developing prototypes? Very interesting.

My guess is that the early serial numbers listed in the Evolution of the Sunfish (old yahoo group Sunfish_Sailor, now SunfishSailor groups.io Group)
document, up to about 2500, were guesses by the yahoo group Admin Wayne and The Usual Visitors. Some 1950s boats had serial numbers on their invoices but not engraved on the hull/parts.

We found no hull numbers on ZIP.

So, what is the smallest serial number yet known to have been stamped on the rudder mount or marked on the hull somewhere? Is this rudder mount with '677' a candidate for being the smallest number yet seen, whatever year of manufacture it may come from?

 

[Mama H Chicago]

So, what is the smallest serial number yet known to have been stamped on the rudder mount or marked on the hull somewhere? Is this rudder mount with '677' a candidate for being the smallest number yet seen, whatever year of manufacture it may come from?

Hmmmm. Interesting! I feel special. ;-). I think
It’s got to be one of the early fiberglass models, especially because she doesn’t even have the aluminum rails or the entail rail on the hull, down the middle.