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, but it runs on our own server, not a third party's.

What we store about visits

We use Matomo, an analytics tool we run ourselves at stats.boatbuildlog.com. Nothing is sent to Google Analytics or anything like it, and no outside company ever sees that you were here; the numbers stay on our own server.

When you open a page, Matomo records which page it was, the site you came from if you followed a link, your browser and device type, and your approximate location. It uses your IP address to work out that location and to recognize a returning reader from a new one. Detailed visit records are kept for a limited time; what we actually look at is the totals: how many people, from where, reading which pages.

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. Matomo, 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 honour it.

Deleting things

You can delete any entry or an entire build at any time, and the photos go with it. To delete your account, email admin@boatbuildlog.com.

The visit records on the analytics side are not tied to your account, and detailed ones age out on their own. If you would like yours removed sooner, or want to opt out of being counted at all, email admin@boatbuildlog.com.