The case of the missing STV photo...

I owe this discovery to @ZiemerSTV ...

Jeff contacted me last month about a very old photo of his old STV posted on S&F for a photo print. This one was unique, since it represented the very first time I could not locate an old photo I had taken. It had no S&F watermark on it, but I knew I shot it. I thought it was from 2009, but it turns out it was from 2005.

I've always been fanatical about my photo cataloging, which is now in the hundreds of thousands of images spanning almost 20 years. Anyway, I could not locate that image Jeff sent me, and I went through four backup drives, by then becoming a mission. Turns out, it was a mistake I made in cataloging very old images when S&F was a much newer place, and those early Alva shoots hidden away for many years. These were archived as "non-event" and therefore, many years later those images were left on the archive drive when I re-cataloged everything around 2010.

I would not have discovered this mistake (and the photos in those archives) if Jeff had not asked me for this particular print. And so, I'll be uploading very old photos from early Alva gatherings that most of you had never seen before.

There are about 500 images in this archive and many of them will really bring back some memories. I'll be posting many of these very soon.

And now, the photo in question, of Jeff's STV Pro Comp - dated from June 26, 2005 at Alva, FL.

Attachment 369492

Glad to see you found them! Sorry it became such a task. Also kind of wondering where this boat ended up. Once Robbie sold it, we have never seen it.

I'll catch up with you this week. Thanks for the effort and can't wait to see more from the Alva shoots.

I really liked the old red and black STV. It ran super after Wally blueprinted the bottom. The fastest I ever had it
was in this picture at 118 mph. Still had more left in it, but Dad Z did not want to go any faster. I believe it would
have easily run 125 mph. It had a 32 lab cleaver on it in this picture. Was only turning 8000 rpms at 118 mph.

I really would like to know where my old STV is. Anyone know?

Looks almost identical to the 92' four seater that I had.

Joe

Boat was originally a 4 seater, but Wally converted it to center steer when he redid boat for me in late 2004
after Hurricane Charley.