A R T I C L E S

Petit Bateau Frequently Asked Questions
by Diana Holder

What is Petit Bateau?
What do I get as a PB member?
Who can join?
How did Petit Bateau start?
How does the email list work?
How many members are there?
How do I join?
I share my email with other people, or else my incoming email gets automatically ccd to my co-workers. Is this a problem?
Why do you need to know my full name when I join?
How will I know that I have been added?
I'm already a Petit Bateau member, but my email address has changed - how do I get the Petit Bateau posts to start arriving at the new one?
Won't I get lots of junk mail and spam if I join?
I'm already a member of the list. Sometimes group messages have links in them to pages in the Yahoo site, but when I go there I am prompted for a login & password and get stuck. What now?
How do I get this Yahoo id then? I'm already a PB list member with my usual email address.
Why should I update my personal details in Yahoo?
What is this Members' Boats Database in the PB pages of Yahoo? And how can I fill in my boat details?
What is the public website used for?
I would like to publish an article about sailing, how do I go about that?
I'm not yet a Petit Bateau member, I would like to join, I want to receive the messages at my usual email address but this Yahoo id thing seems like a good idea. What should I do?
If I go on holiday for a few weeks, my mailbox will fill up. How can I avoid this - should I unsubscribe?
I am about to be away on holiday, and because it is a work email I have to set my Out Of Office auto reply. Will this be OK?
How do I get removed from the list?
I am a PB member using a hotmail.com email address. I haven't had any messages for ages! Is it quiet in here or is it me?
I am a PB member. Hotmail, non-hotmail, whatever - I havent had any messages for ages! Is it quiet in here or is it me?
I just joined and I've come in halfway through a discussion I am very interested in - how can I see the first part of the email thread?
I joined weeks ago and nobody is discussing the topics I am interested in! How can I find out about X, Y & Z?
A lot of the messages seem to be personal or not of interest to a wide audience. Am I meant to be receiving them?
I deleted a load of old posts from my mailbox but I need to look at one of them again, where can I read old messages?
I've got a photo of some complicated fitting in my boat and I would like advice from the other members - can I post the image as an attachment?
Are there any things I should not say or do on the list?
Is what I say in Petit Bateau confidential?
Is my email address confidential?
Is there a clubhouse? And when does the bar open?
This FAQ didn't answer my question. How should I find out the answer?

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Q: What is Petit Bateau?

A: Petit Bateau (PB) is a sailing association intended to bring together and support short handed and single handed sailors of smaller boats who are towards the Corinthian end of the sailing community, involved in longer distance races.

Q: What do I get as a PB member?

A: Membership of the Petit Bateau email list, a forum where members discuss topics around short handed sailing and racing. You'll find practical advice, race information, and moral support from like minded sailors scattered across sixteen countries.

Members ask questions relating to short handed sailing and often get a quick answer or maybe a starting point towards a solution. There is no obligation to post, but any member is welcome to pass on news and wisdom and share views and experiences.

Q: Who can join?

A: Petit Bateau welcomes as members anyone in any country who is interested in the short handed and single handed racing scene.

There is no restriction on the type of boat - monohulls, multihulls, open-design racers and long-keeled cruisers - after all, it is all just boats.

We do concentrate on the more Corinthian end of the spectrum - because we are working to support and further the efforts of racers who are acting independently and do not have large sponsorship budgets. However some members have sponsorship of one kind or another, and we do not exclude those who are progressing towards the professional scene. Even if you don't own a boat, or are currently involved in fully-crewed sailing, or have mainly cruised, you are welcome as long as you are interested in short handed racing.

The group language is English, though we have occasionally done some translating.

Q: How did Petit Bateau start?

A: Originally this was started as a mutual support and information sharing list prior to the OSTAR in 2000. We had noticed that the race requirements were tending towards the big-budget, high-tech campaigns to the possible exclusion of the more Corinthian entrants, and with the splitting of the race into large and small classes in successive years our prediction has proved accurate. The aim was and is to promote and further the efforts of sailors with smaller boats and budgets, and make sure their voice could be heard thus retaining the 'One Person, One Boat, The Sea' philosophy of Blondie Hasler, Francis Chichester et al. The idea was always international - original joiners were from three countries - and there are now members in sixteen countries.

Q: How does the email list work?

A: We use the free Yahoo Groups list service, and verified joiners are added to a group named petit_bateau that we started in early 2000. Members post to the group address and know that all members will receive the email message.

Q: How many members are there?

A: 161 as at 04 March 2005. Given that the single handing / short handing scene is fairly small, this seems to be a significant group of individuals within that community and we feel that as PB grows we should gain more influence and enable our voice to be heard by clubs, organisers and media.

Q: How do I join?

A: Just send email (from the address at which you want to receive group posts) to join@petitbateau.org.uk, giving your name including family name (surname) and a little bit about your sailing interests and experience. This will enable the group admin to verify that you are not a spammer, and you will be added to the list as soon as we can get around to it. You may not be immediately added due to the inconvenience of work! But it will be done as soon as possible. Please read below important information about the benefits of setting up a free Yahoo id.

Q: I share my email with other people, or else my incoming email gets automatically ccd to my co-workers. Is this a problem?

A:If the people you share an email name with are family, then of course it is no problem - presumably they are people you trust not to misuse information they come across in the list messages! If your incoming email is always ccd to work colleagues though, this would pretty much render the very simple PB privacy policy useless. Effectively it means that other PB members are posting to people that are not part of the group. If your work email is set up like this, we advise:
1) set up a Yahoo ID and password, see other answers.
2) sign in to the Yahoo groups site, click through to the petit_bateau members area(see other answers) and set your Delivery Options to say 'No Email' for the petit_bateau list
3) you will then be able to access the list messages via the private petit_bateau area on the Yahoo Groups site.

If you have a different, non-work email address that would be more suitable for a bunch of boat-related messages, please let the list admin know and we will be happy to change your list membership over to the new address.

Q: Why do you need to know my name when I join?

A: Two reasons: it saves confusion - with 160 members there are quite a lot who share the same first name. I include the 'join' message when welcoming a new person, so the people who know them are often reminded by some details - (Oh yes, he had that lovely boat in the Triangle race!) and this helps communication. Generally too, as we now have quite a lot of members sharing the same first names, and also sometimes email addresses do not bear much resemblance to your names, please sign your posts enough to avoid any muddle. eg 'John D' would differentiate John Doe from John Bull (to choose two totally theoretical examples).

The second reason is that we have had attempts by spammers to join the list under false pretences and having an ambiguous webmail address, and pretending to be a sailor, is a favourite technique of theirs. So far we have foiled all attempts by refusing to add anonymous applicants, asking for names, and requiring sailing interests / experience information. Sometimes if the sailing details are sparse/unconvincing I will do a little research. You'd be surprised, the daft things people write when trying to make mischief.

Q: How will I know that I have been added?

A: You will receive a Yahoo Groups Notification message (no need to reply to that one), and the group admin will shortly afterwards send a 'Welcome' message to the group introducing you, which you should receive. Your 'Join' message will be posted in this 'Welcome' post.It will have [petit_bateau] or similar in the subject line. Now that you are added, you can post to the whole group by replying to this Welcome post, or by clicking the Post link in the petit_bateau private area in the Yahoo site.

Q: I'm already a Petit Bateau member, but my email address has changed - how do I get the Petit Bateau posts to start arriving at the new one?

A: If you have a Yahoo Id you can use it to log in to the Yahoo Groups site. Click My Account and then Edit Profile and click the Edit button in the Member Information section. You can change the email address in your profile so that that your PB post will be sent to that new email address from now on. It keeps asking for your Yahoo password but this is normal. When you have added the new email, remember to click Save Changes buttons and links so that your changes are not lost.

If you were using your Yahoo email and id only to read the PB posts, and you have changed your Yahoo id and stopped using the old one, just let the group admin know at join@petitbateau.org.uk and you will be added with the new address.

If you never had a Yahoo id, now might be a good time to create one.

If you no longer have access to your old email and can't get Yahoo to join up your new Yahoo id with your Petit Bateau membership, please send email to join@petitbateau.org.uk explaining your predicament and we will re-add you as soon as we can manage.

Q: Won't I get lots of junk mail and spam if I join?

A: The Petit Bateau list is private, which means that the only people with access and the ability to post to the list have been explicitly added and their identity and interest in short handed sailing has been verified by the group admin. It would be difficult for a spammer to fake knowledge of this. This means you won't get spam sent through the list. Also, because the list is private and only members can enter the private area, spammers won't be able to harvest your Yahoo ids from the Yahoo site. And even if one of the members had a secret interest in selling blue pills etc, your email address is concealed in the members list to all but yourself and the group admin, so your non-Yahoo email addresses cannot be harvested and sold en masse. Anyone spamming on the list will be blocked no questions and will not then be able to repeat the behaviour.

Q: I'm already a member of the list. Sometimes group messages have links in them to pages in the Yahoo site, but when I go there I am prompted for a login & password and get stuck. What now?

A: You need a Yahoo id to see the private PB member area. We recommend that members set themselves up with a free Yahoo id & password, which they can use to sign in to the Yahoo groups website to read and search old messages and see the private group files & photos.

Q: How do I get this Yahoo id then? I'm already a PB list member with my usual email address.

A: Go to the Yahoo Groups Home Page at http://groups.yahoo.com
There is a link to Sign Up and you should click this, follow the instructions and when filling in the form, enter the your usual email address in the 'Alternative Email' box. You will have to create a Yahoo id and a password. There is a verification step where the Yahoo site sends your usual email a message including a code which you copy and paste into the Yahoo group signup page - this ensures that nobody creating a Yahoo id can impersonate you by hijacking your usual email address. Once you have created the new Yahoo id you should sign in to the Yahoo Groups Home Page http://groups.yahoo.com and see if there is a link to petit_bateau group. If there is not, click the 'Can't see All Your Groups?' link and follow the instructions to enable Yahoo to join up your new Yahoo id with your existing petit_bateau membership.

Q: Why should I update my personal details in Yahoo?

A: You can do this when logged in with your Yahoo id. Click My Account and then Edit Profile to fill in your real name, location, any interests, decide to show or hide your email address, and put any web page links that you would like to recommend. At the very least we recommend that you put your real name, this enables the PB readers to know who is posting even if your email address is something other than your name. Also, if members' locations are filled in, it is a lot easier to try to organise social events. But there is no obligation to give this information, just whatever you can manage that you are comfortable with. As you will have been introduced by name when joining, there are no truly anonymous PB members.

Q: What is this Members' Boats Database in the PB pages of Yahoo? And how can I fill in my boat details?

A: When logged in you can see links on the left side in the PB pages and one of them is Databases. You can add and edit the entries in this list. This will help members know more about your sailing preferences and about people who have the same boat type as they do.

Q: What is the public website used for?

A: The public Petit Bateau site at http://www.petitbateau.org.uk/ contains news, race information, event calendar, link and articles.

Q: I would like to publish an article about sailing, how do I go about that?

A: Send the article to the webmaster and it will put it up on the site as soon as he or she gets time. You can sent it as plain text, Microsoft Word, or PDF format. A link will be placed in the Articles page of the public site. Images may be included and should be in .GIF or .JPG format. Other formats can probably be handled, but check first. The webmaster will probably change the formatting of the article to fit in the page and match the text style of the site. You can reach the webmaster via the general

Petit Bateau will not be responsible for copyright problems, so if the article wasn't written by you, please make sure that you are free to disseminate the contents.

Q: I'm not yet a Petit Bateau member, I would like to join, I want to receive the messages at my usual email address but this Yahoo id thing seems like a good idea. What should I do?

A: It's easiest in this case to create your Yahoo id first. Go to the Yahoo Groups Home Page at http://groups.yahoo.com
There is a link to Sign Up and you should click this, follow the instructions and when filling in the form, enter the your usual email address in the 'Alternative Email' box.
You will have to create a Yahoo id and a password. There is a verification step where the Yahoo site sends your usual email a message including a code which you copy and paste into the Yahoo group signup page - this ensures that nobody creating a Yahoo id can impersonate you by hijacking your usual email address. When you've done this, send an email (from the address at which you want to receive group posts) to join@petitbateau.org.uk, giving your name and some detail about your sailing interests and experience. This will enable the group admin to verify that you are not a spammer, and you will be added to the list as soon as we can get around to it. You may not be immediately added due to the inconvenience of work! But it will be done as soon as possible.

Q: If I go on holiday for a few weeks, my mailbox will fill up. How can I avoid this - should I unsubscribe?

A: No, there is no need to unsubscribe - you can log in to Yahoo (you will need a Yahoo id for this, see other answers). Click My Account and then Edit Profile, and change your Delivery Options. You could opt for a single daily digest post (which could still be large in size), or the 'No Email' option where you have web-only access to messages.

Q: I am about to be away on holiday, and because it's a work email I have to set my Out Of Office auto reply. Will this be OK?

A: No, It probably will not be OK. In some setups the Out Of Office reply only sends one auto reply message back to each sender that tries to contact the recipient. Which is a little bit irritating, but not as bad as the next possibility: some other types of email software reply to each and every incoming message with an auto reply. And since you would be receiving anything sent to the PB list, each time anyone posts to the list it will generate an auto reply from you. Which you would receive, because you are a list member. Which will generate an auto reply. And so on and so on. Any message by any member will start a cascade of Out Of Office replies from you that will rapidly fill the mailboxes of all other PB members. These will be helpfully labelled with your name, in case anyone is in any doubt about who is out of the office! :o)

This did indeed happen to Petit Bateau once and I had to go out to an internet cafe in a hurry to set the Delivery Options of the member in question on 'No Email'.

So this is the answer: if you have to set your Out Of Office reply on when you go away, please please please go to the Yahoo Groups site and set your Petit Bateau Delivery Options to 'No Email' before you go! See other answers for details.

Q: How do I get removed from the list?

A: Send email either to the list if you want all members to know you will no longer be reading the posts, or to join@petitbateau.org.uk.

If you want instant removal, you can send email to petit_bateau-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com and that will do the trick. But if it is just volume of posts that is bothering you, why not consider changing your delivery options to Daily Digest or No Email (which gives you web access to the messages)? You can change this whenever you like using the free Yahoo ID and clicking My Account and then the Edit Profile link when logged in to the Yahoo groups site.

If there is a specific post or member that has offended you, first I would urge patience, as sometimes it is hard to strike the right mood in email and particularly where many members are not writing in their first language! and second, if you are still outraged the next day, please let the list admin know at the join@petitbateau.org.uk address. I may be able to clarify or else remind other members (in private, off list) of the aim for PB to be a comfortable discussion place for all members...

Q: I am a PB member using a hotmail.com email address. I haven't had any messages for ages! Is it quiet in here or is it me?

A: It's you, or rather it's Hotmail. I'm pretty sure Hotmail made a change to its default settings quite recently, because some members could receive PB at Hotmail for years and now have this problem. The PB messages can all be found in your Hotmail Junk E-Mail folder - but if you leave them there for a week they get automatically deleted. The way to get them to show up in your Inbox in future, instead of among all that dodgy spam, is to tell Hotmail that PB messages are not junk. In the Junk E-Mail folder in Hotmail, check the box next to one message with a subject line [petit_bateau], and click the 'Not Junk' link above. You should then get a page asking you to choose between two options: "I want to add sender@whatever.com to my Safe List so future messages from this address will be delivered to my Inbox, not my Junk E-Mail Folder." OR "This message is from a mailing list I belong to. I want to make sure future messages from this same mailing list go to my Inbox, not my Junk E-Mail Folder." Select the 'Mailing List' choice and click Next. Follow the instructions and confirm if necessary. If you want to rescue your junked PB posts you can check the boxes next to them in the Junk E-Mail folder and then click 'Put in Folder..' , you'll see a list of other folders, click 'Inbox', and the selected messages will move to your Inbox.

Q:I am a PB member. Hotmail, non-hotmail, whatever - I havent had any messages for ages! Is it quiet in here or is it me?

A: Yahoo list mail can occasionally fail. Sometimes this is caused by your mailbox being full, and the Yahoo list server tries to deliver posts, then gives up after a certain number of attempts. This is called 'Bouncing' and the list admin can see which members are 'Bouncing' and send Reactivation Requests. If you receive a Reactivation Request please follow the instructions in the email. Sometimes the stoppage is due to a change in policy by your email service provider or work email admin - messages from list servers start to be blocked or labelled as spam and delivered to the trash or junk mail folder, just like hotmail. Certain senders may be blocked, eg any sender @yahoogroups is blocked by some corporate employers. In this case you won't get the Reactivation Requests. If you are having difficulty receiving PB messages at work maybe it is easier using a Yahoo ID to look at the messages outside the office.

If you have been missing posts and would like to read the messages you missed, you can browse through all the old posts on the Yahoo Groups site using your Yahoo ID.

Q: I just joined and I've come in halfway through a discussion I am very interested in - how can I see the first part of the email thread?

A: Again you will need to set yourself up with a Yahoo id, see other answers. You can browse the old messages or search on a particular word or phrase in the petit_bateau private area in the Yahoo Groups site.

Q:I joined weeks ago and nobody is discussing the topics I am interested in! How can I find out about X, Y & Z?

A: There are a few possible explanations: maybe it was discussed at length before you joined, in which case the best thing to do is use the free Yahoo ID to search the (just over 5,000 as at 04 March 2005) old messages. You can search on key word, or page through the message listing, see previous answer. Another reason could be that nobody has thought of it! You are welcome to start a topic, ask a question, or post some news or views. Try to change the subject line to something relevant if replying to an earlier message thread and changing the subject though, as it saves confusion.

Q:A lot of the messages seem to be personal or not of interest to a wide audience. Am I meant to be receiving them?

A: That is part of the unique charm of Petit Bateau... PB is a community and many friendships go back years. Personal news, frank exchange of ideas, lively banter, and what may seem occasionally to be scathing insult are tolerated, up to a point. It's wise to assume that if one member has a dig at another for never buying drinks when they meet, that in reality they have both bought each other many beers. As a theoretical example. I reckon that about ten percent of the posts are to do with list admin and new members, a quarter are lighthearted/personal and about community and friendships, and the rest are informative / news / discussion of sailing topics.

Of course, there are limits to what should be sent - please see the very few Rules below.

Q: I deleted a load of old posts from my mailbox but I need to look at one of them again, where can I read old messages?

A: With a free Yahoo id set up (see above) you can log in to http://groups.yahoo.com and enter the Petit Bateau private members area. Click the Messages link and you will see a calendar showing the number of messages for each month of the group's lifespan. Click the appropriate month and check through the list of messages to read the one you want. Alternatively, you can use the Search function to find all posts containing a particular word.

Q: I've got a photo of some complicated fitting in my boat and I would like advice from the other members - can I post the image as an attachment?

A: Some members have limited mailbox space and dialup internet connections so large file attachments on group messages may be unpopular and should be avoided. If you have somewhere on the Web that you often put pictures up, then please use that and post a link to the image. But even if you don't have a website, you can still share the picture with other members. With a Yahoo id you can take advantage of the free space in the Photos page within the PB area of the Yahoo site.
Once your photo is uploaded, (gif format is the best as it takes less space than a bitmap or jpeg) just post a message to ask people to have a look at it.

Q: Are there any things I should not say or do on the list?

A: Well, we're all grown ups, but gross personal threats and insults won't make you any friends, obviously... Many of the members have known each other for many years and a fair amount of fun-poking and friendly rivalry occurs, so the atmosphere is relaxed. In any discussion about sailing, that we all care about so much, disagreements are bound to arise and everyone is entitled to their opinion within reason. However the usual disclaimers apply:
- You shouldn't post anything too risqué
- Many people have work email which will block swear words
- Spam is never clever
- Adverts for completely unrelated products won't go down too well
- If you have a commercial interest in a particular product related to boating, by all means let the members know about the product but also state your commercial interest
- Please don't pass the email addresses of other members to outside parties, otherwise all the spam avoidance technology will be no use
- To save space in inboxes, post a link to a website instead of text or pictures from that website - most mail software will create a link if you paste the whole URL from http to the end of the link. To get the link for an image, right click on the image and select Properties, then select and copy the whole URL in the grey popup that appears
- Where possible, when replying to a very long post (and especially if you are replying to something in the Daily Digest if you receive in this way) or long message thread, snip out any irrelevant text, leaving only the point you are commenting on and the name of the person who wrote it. This will save space in in boxes and time for those on dialup connections when picking up their messages.
- Don't flame, think before you post. I you have read something that makes you mad, cool down, wait till next day before replying.
- Don't troll (deliberately wind up), it makes people mad (see above).

Q: Is what I say in Petit Bateau confidential?

A: Yes. Although we cannot guarantee confidentiality, the contents of Petit Bateau email are private amongst members. Any member found in breach of confidentiality, who distributes the contents of emails to 3rd parties will be speedily removed from membership.

Q: Is my email address confidential?

A: Yes. Although we cannot guarantee confidentiality, members' email addresses are private amongst members. Any member found in breach of confidentiality, who distributes members' email addresses to 3rd parties will be speedily removed from membership.

Q: Is there a clubhouse? And when does the bar open?

A: There is no clubhouse because we are a virtual group and widely scattered. The geographical 'centre of effort' of PB is something like the Strait of Dover and that is not a very hospitable spot! However we do try to meet up when possible, for example twenty of the members, some coming from Spain, Netherlands, and the USA, met up at the London Boat Show in January and had a fun evening starting in the Guinness Tent and finishing off round a very large restaurant table. This London Boat Show gathering has become traditional as we have managed to get quite a few people together every year since the formation of PB. Of course PB members in all locations should feel free to arrange socials for any reason at all. I guess it is a 'whenever two or three are gathered together' kind of idea.

Q: This FAQ didn't answer my question. How should I find out the answer?

A: Please email your question to the group and we will try to find an answer and update the FAQ accordingly.

Diana Holder