Back in 2002, the MarinerSailors Yahoo! Group was formed, and it slowly picked up steam as more and more people joined the group (600 eventually!), added photos, and contributed to forum discussions. It was considered the “place to go” for information, forum posts, and pictures. For a long time, there was an informal rivalry of sorts between the message boards of the MarinerSailors group and the Mariner Class Association, and many sailors would post the same message or question to both boards to get the most feedback. At one point, the MarinerSailors group had over 300 message posts in a single month, a really remarkable figure! However, when the Mariner Class Association switched to ClubExpress as its host, its forums became much more sophisticated and user-friendly than Yahoo!’s, and the MarinerSailors group rapidly declined. In 2018, there was only a single posting from an old member, and in 2019, there were no postings at all.
The MarinerSailors Yahoo! group had become obsolete as all other Yahoo! groups had, and it’s only to be expected that Yahoo! would make the decision to no longer host user-created content on all of its Group sites starting last month. It’s a shame, though, that the wealth of information and pictures accumulated over so many years is now gone. While you can still communicate with members via e-mail, it is, for all intents and purposes, officially defunct.
The Group really started it all for me when I was looking for a Mariner to buy, and many hours were spent pouring through the forum posts and photo albums. While I admit that I have barely looked at it for several years now, I certainly appreciated all it offered when it was active.
Rest In Peace, MarinerSailors Yahoo! Group.