Instant Boats Message Boards

It's been a long time in coming, but a revamped "modern" version of instantboats.com is only a few months away. Most of the organizational details have been worked out, it's just a matter of re-typing the content pages to be compliant with modern web standards. (For those of you with tiny screens or old computers - don't worry! The new site will still scale very nicely to screens of various sizes, and we are not making much use of horrible "multimedia" features like Flash or javascript. Also, the navigation and layout will remain mostly the same. The main difference is it will be database-driven so that we can make changes more easily, and have much better type-setting/aesthetics and a more consistent look.)

However, there is one big problem: Most of the "media" for the old site is woefully inadequate for a modern site. Many of the old images are just too small, or are poor quality scans from a low-res black & white image in one of Payson's books.

This is where you guys come in! If you have a photo of an instant boat, on land, sailing, or under construction that you think is really good (or heck, even if it's not really good, it might still be better than what we have - which is nothing in many cases) send it as an attachment in an email to wmakley@gmail.com. Or, if you want, post it in this thread for others to comment on.

(Side note: I'm not an expert on much besides web programming. If you could identify the boat pictured your photos, it would be a big help for me.)

Don't worry about scaling it properly for email, since I'd much rather have the highest resolution photos possible, and my gmail account has lots of storage space.

What you get

• Your photograph on instantboats.com! Even if we don't use it for one of the boat pages, the home page will have a rotating photo gallery. (And there might be rotating photo galleries for the boats, too.)
• The photo will be credited to you, so please include your name in the email (or whatever name you want us to use in the credit - if you don't want to be credited, say so)
• A link to your web site. If you have a site, and the content is suitable for children and relevant to boat-building please provide the URL so we can give you a link. The way this will most likely be done is your name in the photo credit will be a hyperlink to your web page.

If you don't have a web site and want the photo credit to provide your email: Please say so. (We will assume that you do not want your email public otherwise.)

By posting a photo in this thread or submitting one via email, you understand that it might be used on instantboats.com. If you want your photo removed in the future for any reason, we will provide a place to request that this be done (and will try to be prompt about handling such requests).

Also, some of you may have read this thread and are wondering about the "Builds" feature. Sadly, I have had to backburner that since, in order to do it right, we will need to able to host submitted images on instantboats.com and our web host simply doesn't provide enough space to allow just anybody to upload an image (even if they will be automatically scaled and optimized).

My photos sent... It ain't pretty!

Alan

Big Tortoise in Delaware

Credit Crazy Doug

Website http://www.doublebad.net

here are some shots of the folding schooner. use what you like.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=10180&id=705579793&l=f076e0a647
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=86585&id=705579793&l=5b83fbbc7f

I'll work on some nicer shots.

Cheers!
Breaux

Hi Breaux, your Folding Schooner is fantastic! Another Texas boy who was once on this forum from East Texas, somewhere in the "woods built one back in '06/'07 thereabouts and sailed her into the rocks on her maiden voyage as I recall. Hope you continue to safely sail yours. A big build for anyone and you did a great job. Did you finish the 200 okay? Saw your pics on Facebook.

Regards,

Levi,

I followed your conversations with General Zod and the build of the baby blue schooner. Well, actually it was a couple of years later, but i enjoyed it thuroughly and it inspired me on my build. I tried to get in touch with him, but was not able.

We made it through the Texas 200 just fine. if you notice on some later photos, there is a crook of a Mesquite tree lashed on for the main boom jaws. if i recall, the General's leeboards snapped on launching. Mine were built too thin and i snapped one 5 minutes out and the other three days in. So we had our challenges, but the schooner's size allowed for a lot of rookie mistakes. we had 25 mph winds most of the time but the schoone is amaxzingly stable. I could walk on the wales when moving fore and aft (balancing with the mast).

I am not sure what convinced me to build a 31 ft folding vessel, but i enjoy this boat every time i take it out.

Breaux