How Pirate Ships get Funded.

What a totally awesome and crazy week.

Just as I was about to go to Bed Sunday Night the first email came in, then another one. People were buying Tripods, people were helping build the ship. I looked at the View counter on the Video and it had shot up 200 more views than an hour before. (currently over 9000 views)

I looked at Boing Boing to see if my link was up, and there it was. Right there at the Top of the page was the video describing the Ship and the Tripods. Then a third and forth order came in, it was now 8am on the west coast. Then another order, I wasn’t going to sleep yet. As the Tripods sold I updated the site. This was exciting; I started messaging the rest of the ship’s crew.

We had about 30 Tripods on the site, but I also had 20 Tripods that still needed their picture taken. I managed the Sales as they were coming in. At the same time I set up to take pictures of the new Tripods. I worked fast to get them up on the site.

By the end of the Day over 30 Tripods had sold. Tuesday slowed down a little bit but the Tripods were still selling.

Then Wednesday comes and the link to the video is in “The Jack Rabbit Speaks”, Burning Man’s news letter. Orders started coming in fast and it didn’t take long to sell the remaining 20 Tripods. As of Thursday, 53 Tripods had been sold…. But our work had just begun.

It is now Friday Morning, my house is torn apart, packaging materials are everywhere. Pirate Ship Crew have been helping me get all the Tripods boxed up and ready for shipping. And now, 53 Tripods are ready to be taken to the Post Office. Some of them going to the U.K., Canada, Australia, and all over the United States. In a few days time all over the world people are going to meet their new friend.

A lot of people put a lot of work into the Tripods. Some of the crew was starting to question if this was the best way to fund the ship and maybe we needed to try something else. But here it is, out cost have been covered and we have enough to finish the ship and get it to the Playa.

We’ll continue to fund raise; there are a lot of things that we always said: “It would be nice to have X,Y,Z” and now X, Y and Z are much more of a possibility.

We have ~10 Tripods out at galleries that I will bring back this week and get up on the Website.
We will also sale the 3 huge Elder Tripods.

The important part is that we are funded.

So thank you. If you’re here reading about what we’re doing then you are helping us, if you bought a sticker, a patch or one the Tripods you are supporting us in a big way.

I have dreamed about this ship for years, being able to now build it without wondering where the Money is going to come from is a gift. Thank you,

Captain Andy