Frank Hagan

Somehow, I don't think that will be a problem for you! You'll be a top poster again in no time ...

Hey, I want one of those battleships. I'm sure the PWCs wouldn't jet around me giving me the thumb's up and yelling "Great junk rig!" And even if they did, I'd have a way to respond!

Oops, looks like I forgot to put those pages on the new server! I'll add them back in, and put a link on the Weekender page again. Thanks for pointing that one out! (I am sure there will be more!)

Registration is for the forums, My Gallery and My Home Port (when it gets up and running), to enable "extra features". For the forums, the extras include being able to email other registered members, getting email notifications when someone has responded to your post, having buttons below your posts that people can click to see your email, website, ICQ or AIM number, etc. And sending private messages to other registered members, here on the forum (they aren't really "private", as I and anyone else I authorize could read them, but they are hidden from everyone else). Registration will not feed your email into a database for sending you spam, selling your email address to people who want you to have certain body parts enlarged (just WHY are they concerned with that anyway?), pestering you with "newsletters" or anything else. You may notice posts with your name in the forum already; those are imported messages from the old forum. Those are "guest" posts, and you can continue to post as a guest. Its only the "added features" you get by registering. When you register, every post from that point forward will have the extra features enabled, but those already in the forums will not. If you have any questions, ask away!

messing-about.com outgrew its old server, and we were close to having to pay for bandwidth (expensive). In addition, the forum software was slow, and getting harder and harder to maintain once we got over 2000 messages. In looking for a new host, I found some who would not allow the old software to be installed on their systems. Hmmm ... I took that as a hint. So we switched to phpBB software for the forums, and our new host provides us with a faster server, more web space, and a few other nice features (in fact, we were the first site on their newest server). I know some of you don't like the "flat file" style of these forums, but I tried to find one that had the feature set we needed, and was cheap enough for me to install. phpBB is open source, and free, and we have picture uploading (for registered members), smileys, "bbcode" for formatting messages, and some other nice features. Many features require that you register, but you can still read, post and reply without registering. Registration is easy enough. You have to provide your email to register, but it isn't sold and won't be displayed ... someone has to click a link to get to it, preventing the spam robots from harvesting it. Registration will also allow you to post pictures in our gallery and, when its available, put up your own home page in our My Home Port section. The last 2200 messages from the old Main Forum have been imported, but some of the older ones didn't make the transition. The slower forums, including the B & B Yacht Designs Forum were imported on Jan. 10, so the newest messages there are that old. Same with the Design Forum and Classifieds. Finally, check the home page, and the new format of the Weekender, Small Boats and Gaff Rig Pages (some still under construction!) Soon, I'll have the new "bookstore" up, with the top 100 boat building books of all time. And new gift items in our Gift Shop for those of you who want to support the site. As always, feel free to enjoy the forums. I hope the new format will grow on you, and it won't interfere with the comraderie we've had over the last two years.

This forum is hosted by messing-about.com with the permission of, and participation by B & B Yacht Designs. Discussion here is generally about the B & B Yacht Designs line of boats for the amateur boat builder. But we don't strictly enforce topic rules on messing-about.com, so if a conversation leads off into a different direction, don't be too concerned. Conversations do that sometimes! If the topic doesn't apply at all, I may move it to the Main Forum. B & B Yacht Designs announced new email addresses for their customers:

I was able to import some of the old messages into the database of the new forums, but not everything made the transition that well. You'll see some red X next to topics where the little graphic we used to have didn't quite make it through the transition process. And a few of the most recent messages may not have made it ... But its here now, and you can upload pics in the Design forum without having to find a place to post them and link to them. So perhaps we can get this forum started again!

Testing the image upload feature, using the boxes in "Add an Attachment" section. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]