Thanks for your replies.
To clarify:

subdomain "coinwatch.tripleflow.com" was pointing to a folder public_html/jewellery_gifts

coinwatch.tripleflow.com_config.php

<?php
$template_dir = "coinwatch";
define('SITE_NAME','Coinwatch');
define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://coinwatch.tripleflow.com/');
define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://coinwatch.tripleflow.com/');
define('CATEGORIES_ROOT','1'); //root categories is 1 for this site
?>

This would drop out the images and by the looks of it everything to do with the template, you could just see basic text

if:

define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.tripleflow.com/');
I could see all images and templates again except that would defeat the whole purpose of multisite....

I wasn't sure if the problem was in the dns or the php somewhere

I didn't want to have zen in the root because I wanted a flash website to be at the root.

I just tried moving zencart to root and it fixed the problem...weird... Maybe a dns issue?

I guess I will find a way to redirect from zencart to my flash site instead.
Anyone know the best way to do this?

cheers