Yahoo Group Sunfish_Sailor Shutting Down

signal charlie

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Howdy,

Kent here, Owner of the Yahoo Group Sunfish_Sailor. We have been notified by Yahoo that they will be deleting Files, Photos and most everything else from all Yahoo Groups by the end of October. Email functionality will remain but all Conversations will be deleted, so I'm not sure what is really left after they are done getting rid of everything else?

I have downloaded the Files section, and am working on the Photo Albums. I will keep those in Dropbox for a bit. Not sure what I can do about the 17,753 messages. I am chatting with a Sailing Forums admin about moving some of the info over to this Sunfish Forum, increasing the content on the Sunfish Forum Knowledge Base page. I have also created a new account at SunfishSailor groups.io Group to archive the Files and Photos. I paid for a Premium Membership, by doing so gio is supposed to move over Files, Photos and Conversations over the next few weeks. I have no idea what the workspace will be like once that is done, at a minimum I hope it becomes a backup to this Forum. Other ideas are welcome.

Wayne (sail231) started Sunfish_Sailor back in 2000, Keith had it for a bit and he turned it over to me about 6 years ago. Fortunately I have seen a lot of cross posting over the years and most of the content is duplicated, with the exception of the photos.

If you have any favorite threads over there or want some of the files and photos, I suggest grabbing them now.

Thank you everyone who helped build Sunfish_Sailor, let's keep its spirit alive here and in other venues!

Sincerely,
Kent and Audrey

IMG_2049.JPG
 
Has Yahoo given a reason for this move of theirs? Is it Facebook?

I've lost 14 years of similar contributions to a site devoted to a little town that I live--and grew up in. The site shrank gradually, losing out to FB. (Who controls what can be known about you, your family, and controls "content" to one degree or another). :(
 
1) Power and Control - Isolate so groups of like minds cannot congregate and share information. Colonization of the webernet. Resistance is futile.

2) Follow the money. Since the advent of the interweb how many "free" groups are still around and semi-functional? I can't imagine the database that is out there from Yahoo Group members, what it costs to store it and what it costs to keep the platform running. The profit margin must be better somewhere else. Wonder if Yahoo considered monetizing the groups directly? Wait, they did. It's bigger than that. We are commodities.

3) Evidently we are outdated and antiquated. Just ask google. Since I am posting here from a MacBook, and not a tablet or a smartphone, I definitely am. If you look at where the multimedia folks are trying to push us to, it is all the myface, instabook, tweetface, reddit type sites so we can be fed web-based soma, and be happy in our roles.

Wow, that got deep and dark...Wait, more time for messing about in boats now!

Current state of affairs Post-Nestor. Plans are to get the kayaks and Grumman back out to their tree, put PHOENIX back in the Sunfish Shack, row the Penobscot and get some pictures of gloves for a gear article in next month's Small Boats Magazine, and maybe do a blind patch or two or three on WAVE.

IMG_2050.JPG
 
...Follow the money. Since the advent of the interweb how many "free" groups are still around and semi-functional? I can't imagine the database that is out there from Yahoo Group members, what it costs to store it and what it costs to keep the platform running. The profit margin must be better somewhere else. Wonder if Yahoo considered monetizing the groups directly? Wait, they did. It's bigger than that. We are commodities.

Signal Charlie, I echo the others who thank you for all the work you are doing to keep this valuable information in the public domain. Your comments on Yahoo's business model caused me to wonder how is SailingForums funded?
 
Signal Charlie,

Your original comments in this post are right on, unfortunately. Seeing the yahoo forums go is just another sign of the times. Technology is changing so quickly and it does feel like we’re just commodities being manipulated along. I can’t save my photos from the yahoo site unless I buy more memory for my iPhone. The photos are all ‘in the cloud’ in no organized way, and I feel like a dinosaur. One step from Coastal Redneck’s flip phone (best phone I ever had)
The antidote, as you recognize, is to get off the grid as much as you can. Work on a boat. Go sailing!
Finding the healthy balance is key.

I have zero interest in twitter or MySpace or instagram (though I admit I’m on Facebook- friend me if you are, too ;))
 
...Technology is changing so quickly and it does feel like we’re just commodities being manipulated along. ...The antidote, as you recognize, is to get off the grid as much as you can. Work on a boat. Go sailing!
Finding the healthy balance is key. I have zero interest in twitter or MySpace or instagram (though I admit I’m on Facebook- friend me if you are, too ;))
The direction of this thread reminds me of one of my favorite episodes of the British Sitcom, "The IT Crowd" that parodies the fickleness of social media by making up 'FriendFace'. A clip of the episode is on YouTube if you want a good laugh if the weather is too bad for Sailing this afternoon. :)
 
I just wanted to drop in to say that Sailing Forums isn’t going anywhere! The site is ad supported and while I don’t want anyone clicking ads just for fun, when you support our sponsors like Intensity Sails you help cover the costs to run the forum.

We do serve more ads to people who are NOT logged in FYI. This is mostly to grab a few extra pennies from people who are just swinging by from a google search but don’t plan to stick around and be a part of the community. So, staying logged in will make sure you don’t see as many ads. Google changed the way they serve ads “automatically based on screen size” and its causing the bottom ad to be way too large on many devices now. That will be resolved very soon.

Finally, we have all the PDF content from the Yahoo group saved on Dropbox and will be sharing it publicly here in the next few weeks. I’ll make a post when its live on the Sunfish Knowledge Base.

Cheers!
 
I just wanted to drop in to say that Sailing Forums isn’t going anywhere! The site is ad supported and while I don’t want anyone clicking ads just for fun, when you support our sponsors like Intensity Sails you help cover the costs to run the forum.

We do serve more ads to people who are NOT logged in FYI. This is mostly to grab a few extra pennies from people who are just swinging by from a google search but don’t plan to stick around and be a part of the community. So, staying logged in will make sure you don’t see as many ads. Google changed the way they serve ads “automatically based on screen size” and its causing the bottom ad to be way too large on many devices now. That will be resolved very soon.

Finally, we have all the PDF content from the Yahoo group saved on Dropbox and will be sharing it publicly here in the next few weeks. I’ll make a post when its live on the Sunfish Knowledge Base.

Cheers!
Thank you very much!
'Think I'll go buy a sail...

:)
 
The Yahoo Group id mostly moved over, I am trying to get them to move over the loose photos in addition to the albums, which are moved.

All the Files and Conversations are moved.

Things will probably be quiet over there, think of it as a nice friendly Archive. There is more activity on this Forum. One nice feature it has is the ability to put a photo into the message, vs making it an attachment.

New home for Yahoo Sunfish_Sailor: SunfishSailor groups.io Group

Current state of affairs in the Carriage House, Penobscot 14 ST. JACQUES, 1982 AMF PHOENIX and 1965 Alcort WAVE. Maybe WAVE gets some fiberglass repair this week, as Florida Fall is peeking around the corner. Oh, the keel batten for the Pascagoula 16 Catboat is laying there too, it will be a while before more happens with that.

IMG_2067.JPG
 
The Yahoo Group id mostly moved over, I am trying to get them to move over the loose photos in addition to the albums, which are moved.

All the Files and Conversations are moved.

Things will probably be quiet over there, think of it as a nice friendly Archive. There is more activity on this Forum. One nice feature it has is the ability to put a photo into the message, vs making it an attachment.

New home for Yahoo Sunfish_Sailor: SunfishSailor groups.io Group

Current state of affairs in the Carriage House, Penobscot 14 ST. JACQUES, 1982 AMF PHOENIX and 1965 Alcort WAVE. Maybe WAVE gets some fiberglass repair this week, as Florida Fall is peeking around the corner. Oh, the keel batten for the Pascagoula 16 Catboat is laying there too, it will be a while before more happens with that.

View attachment 34913
The Yahoo Group id mostly moved over, I am trying to get them to move over the loose photos in addition to the albums, which are moved.

All the Files and Conversations are moved....
New home for Yahoo Sunfish_Sailor: SunfishSailor groups.io Group

Thank you so much, Signal Charlie, for all your hard work in saving this important archive of information and knowledge. I’m sure I will be perusing it for tips and how-to’s over the winter months. I’ve got a ‘71 with a leak in its bow seam, a heavy ‘69 “rescue-fish” with cracks in the cubby and bow handle, and a perfectly good ‘77 with not a single thing wrong with her. The first two will give me some opportunities to work with glass again, something I’ve not done since I was a teenager.
 
You're welcome Weston. It was a good venue for its time, and I like the Photo archives. Fingers crossed that the gio transfer team reads the note I sent them and grabs the rest of the photos. 2400+ moved over in Albums so far, there are over 7000+. I can tell you though, I think about 3500 of them are fuzzy shots of someone's dirty hull, with a hole or two in the fiberglass. Then no follow up as to what they did. Kudos to those who followed through with the rest of the story and the rest of the photos, especially those of Float Tests and Sea Trials. Yard Sailing is good too.

Insert random photo of 2019 sailing season up in Michigan. This gent has not one, not two, but 3, count em, three Catfish. One he has had new since the 60s.

Catfish 3 East Jordan Michigan.jpg
 
norcal if you don't take it on who will :)


Update 2000 photos moved over into Master Album. Today we also started an upgrade to the seawall, had a lil Norwester a few weeks back that scoured out some of the yard. 40 bags of river rock and pea gravel so far, 20 border stones. We are swappin stone and rock in for the grass for the first 16 inches behind the seawall, the grass hasn't survived salt spray there. 50 bogs of rock and 50 stones to go. Woot.

IMG_2083.JPG


Fun photo I found in the Yahoo files, kind of a good look at the anatomy of fiberglass and gelcoat. The hulls are made by spraying gelcoat into the female mold that was first coated with a release agent, it is king of like hard, thick paint. That is the crusty blue stuff in this photo. Then fiberglass cloth is laid on the inside of the gelcoat and it was wet out with polysester resin. The resin is the brown stuff coating the cloth. On this boat a lot of the resin has ablated off, leaving fuzzy cloth. The fiberglass and cloth should have a clear appearance, if they are cloudy, then that are has been crushed and the resin is fractured away from the cloth. So a lot of time the gelcoat can be repaired without messing with the fiberglass. If the fiberglass is crushed or degraded to the fuzzy cloth stage, then the fiberglass needs to be repairs as well.

Fiberglass anatomy.jpg
 
Photos are moved over. Turns out there were not 7000, after I weeded duplicates, fuzzy shots and a lot of boats that were not any type of Sunfish, Sailfish, other Alcort/AMF Fish or clonefish, there are 2712 photos in the 1945 - Current All Photos Album.

If you had an album before, your album should have been moved over.

The little hole is the hull vent, I think it started around AMF time. Don't plug it. Also don't let the cockpit fill up while the boat is in Winter storage, guess where the water goes?

Cockpit vent vent.jpg


Some hulls had a vent hole drilled through the Ser No plate, others had it under the plate or under the silver sticker.

1963 Alcort Ser No Plate

Ser No 11004.jpg


1967 Alcort. For years I didn't notice the little Sailfish on one of the sails.

Ser No Plate lichen.jpg
 
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norcal if you don't take it on who will :)


Update 2000 photos moved over into Master Album. Today we also started an upgrade to the seawall, had a lil Norwester a few weeks back that scoured out some of the yard. 40 bags of river rock and pea gravel so far, 20 border stones. We are swappin stone and rock in for the grass for the first 16 inches behind the seawall, the grass hasn't survived salt spray there. 50 bogs of rock and 50 stones to go. Woot.

View attachment 34917

Fun photo I found in the Yahoo files, kind of a good look at the anatomy of fiberglass and gelcoat. The hulls are made by spraying gelcoat into the female mold that was first coated with a release agent, it is king of like hard, thick paint. That is the crusty blue stuff in this photo. Then fiberglass cloth is laid on the inside of the gelcoat and it was wet out with polysester resin. The resin is the brown stuff coating the cloth. On this boat a lot of the resin has ablated off, leaving fuzzy cloth. The fiberglass and cloth should have a clear appearance, if they are cloudy, then that are has been crushed and the resin is fractured away from the cloth. So a lot of time the gelcoat can be repaired without messing with the fiberglass. If the fiberglass is crushed or degraded to the fuzzy cloth stage, then the fiberglass needs to be repairs as well.

View attachment 34918
...Fun photo I found in the Yahoo files, kind of a good look at the anatomy of fiberglass and gelcoat...

View attachment 34918

This photo reminds of something Jackson Pollack might paint. Actually quite beautiful. I’d not be ashamed to have a 4’x4’ reproduction of that photo in my office!
 
• Halyard deck block to fairlead ('71-'72 ?). Still a Block in 1972
Also still has the old Bailer in 1972. Likely both changed in 1973.
 
• Halyard deck block to fairlead ('71-'72 ?). Still a Block in 1972
Also still has the old Bailer in 1972. Likely both changed in 1973.

I'm guessing there was some significant overlap where boats were coming out either or...

My August 1974 boat has a deck block and old bailer.
 

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