Privacy

Last updated 1 October 2026.

What we store about you

Your name, email address, username, and whatever you choose to put in your profile. Your builds, entries, photos and comments. No advertising trackers, no data sold or handed to anyone. We do measure visits, described just below, and that measuring runs on our own server rather than a third party's.

What we store about visits

Our analytics are first party and self hosted. The measuring runs on a server we control, the records stay there, and nothing about your visit is sent to an outside analytics or advertising company. There are no advertising trackers on this site, and none of this is sold or shared with anyone.

When you open a page we record which page it was and when, the site you came from if you followed a link, the kind of browser and device you used, and an approximate location worked out from your IP address. That address is shortened before it is stored, so it no longer points at a single household, and it is also what lets us tell a returning reader from a new one. Detailed visit records are deleted after 92 days. Beyond that we keep only totals (how many people, roughly where from, and which pages were read), and the totals are what we actually look at.

While you are signed in, your visits are recorded against your account. What is stored is your account number, which means nothing outside our database. We do this so we can answer questions like how many builders read the blog, rather than guessing from browsers. It stays on our server, it is never sold or handed to anyone, and you can switch it off below. Signed out, nothing links a visit to you.

Two things we should have said sooner

These predate the section above and were not previously written down here.

Sign-in sessions. While you have an active session, the sign-in record holds your IP address and browser name so the session can be recognized. It is deleted when the session expires.

Server logs. Our web host keeps its own access log of every request to every site it runs, including this one, with IP addresses and browser names. That is the hosting company's log, not ours, and it is standard for every website everywhere, but it exists, so you should know about it.

Your photos get stripped

Every photo you upload is resized and has its metadata removed before it is stored, including GPS coordinates. Phones tag photos with where they were taken, and a build log is mostly photos taken at home. We read the date off the photo so your entry lands on the day you did the work, then discard the rest.

Full-resolution originals are not kept.

Who can see what

A build is private until you publish it. Until then only you can see it, plus anyone you hand the private link to, and a moderator if you have submitted it for review. Published builds are public to the whole internet and to search engines.

Private messages

Messages between builders are private, and stay on the site. We never give either person the other's email address, and the email telling you that a message has arrived never carries a stranger's words in it, only that somebody wrote, and a link.

A moderator can read a private message in two cases and no others: you or the other person reported it, or an automatic rule stopped it before it was delivered. In both cases they see that message and the five before it, so a sentence is not judged out of context, and nothing after it. Every one of those reads is logged with who read it and when.

A conversation both of you have deleted is erased for good thirty days later. A reported message is kept for a year after the report is closed, in case the same account turns up again. We record a one-way fingerprint of the connection a message was sent from, never the address itself, and that goes after thirty days.

Cookies

One keeps you signed in. Our analytics sets a couple more so it can tell a returning visitor from a new one and measure how the site is used. If you arrive through a builder's referral link, one remembers whose link it was for up to 30 days, so they get the credit if you sign up; and closing the giveaway announcement sets one so it stays closed. None are advertising cookies, and none are shared with anyone outside this site. If your browser sends a “Do Not Track” signal, we honor it and record nothing at all. Browsers are steadily dropping that signal, so the button below is the one to use if you want to be certain.

Deleting things

You can delete any entry or an entire build at any time, and the photos go with it. You can close your account yourself under Settings; it takes your log off the site and can be undone. If you want the account and everything in it erased for good instead, email admin@boatbuildlog.com and we will do that.

Visit records age out after 92 days on their own. To have yours removed sooner, email admin@boatbuildlog.com. Because they are recorded against your account number, we can find and delete exactly yours.

Opting out of being counted

This button stops us recording anything about your visits at all, signed in or not. It works by setting a cookie in this browser, so it applies to this browser only, and clearing your cookies clears it too.

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