"SharkBytes" is the official internet web-site for the Canadian Shark Class Association. Although, for convenience, SharkBytes displays logos for the International Shark Class Association (ISCA) as well as the CSCA, the Domain is owned by the CSCA and totally supported by member fees. The site is maintained, on a voluntary basis by Bill Henderson and Ivan Amery who accept member input in the form of formatted report files and images submitted on-line and via email. While ‘raw’ data can be accepted and processed it is discouraged and ‘creative’ input by the Webmasters is minimal.

Web design and organization depends on MS FrontPage software, one copy of which is owned by the Association. The site is maintained on 150mb of space on SoftCom’s servers at myhosting.com SoftCom is a Toronto based Canadian corporation, founded in 1997 and headquartered in Toronto. We also contract with SEVENtwentyfour Inc. for weekly checking of the nearly 5000 ‘active links’ on the site – a responsibility beyond the capability of two ‘volunteers’. The domain ‘shark24.org’, is registered with NetworkSolutions, expiring in 2006.

SharkBytes is an organized group of 16 inter-related ‘sub-webs, which can be entered, through a Home Page (displaying the association logos) or an Introductory topical image page entitled "Shark of the Week" or "Summer Memories" (depending on the season), via a Directory system or directly, by users who have logged the individual page addresses on their systems. The sit also offers an ‘auto-notification’ service which tracks page changes and notifies users by email. Sub-web content is as follows:

1. Latest News – current notices and events

2. 2002 Worlds – a summary report, results and pictures

3. The Boatyard* – Sharks for Sale and Wanted and maintenance advice

4. The Crewbank* – crew wanted and available postings

5. SharkTalk – interactive discussion groups

6. Travels with EOS – The Randal Peart story

7. Gatherings – List of ‘known’ Sharks and where to find them

8. Goings-on - Fleet events

9. The Guestbook – list of visitors

10. The Library – useful permanent reference articles

11. Lines, Telltales and other Yarns – Shark stories

12. Members Corner – Special interest items and Association matters

13. Membership – Association information, applications, whose who

14. One Design – specifications debate

15. The Racing Page – everything you need to know about Shark racing

16. Sharks at Play – Pictures, pictures, pictures!

Activity -

SharkBytes averages over 6000 ‘hits’ (pages accessed or viewed) a day from between 400 and 500 unique visitors who average 6 or 7 minutes each visit. Many of these ‘visitors’ (possibly 50%) are casual ‘web surfers’ and search engine ‘sweeps’. We do not track individual accesses.

Over the first few months of 2003, we have tracked access to the sub-web directories and find that the Boatyard, specifically the Sharks for Sale pages, is, by a long way, the most active area of interest, after Latest News. These are closely followed by Sharks at Play, Membership, Members Corner and SharkTalk but all sections of the site are very active. The Racing Page is, of course particularly active during the racing season.

We find that access activity is driven by topicality (news value!). We depend on you, the sailors, for reports, regatta results and virtually all our general interest items. We do not maintain a team of ‘reporters’ and we post what we get – if nothing comes in we cannot put anything out!

Finances in 2002 - What did all this cost?

For convenience, all SharkBytes expense is incurred through the Webmaster (Bill Henderson) and charged back to the Association quarterly. Past year expense, the equivalent of approximately 21 memberships, has been as follows:

Web hosting (US$21.35 a month) $409.89 (Canadian)

Weekly Link checking $319.93

Miscellaneous photocopy $ 9.20

Total $739.02

Bill Henderson