I am reading the posts from cats and tunnels and posted a question about copying.I was wondering how someone could copy something as large as a boat.I would be willing to bet most hulls are a copy based on the info I received.Once a new design is made is there some way to register it to protect the design from copying? if not,wouldn't this stifle incentive for new designers.I was told that they just make a different top.Thanks,DEL51.
I'm no expert, but I believe you can make a splash from an existing boat by coating the hull and fiberglassing, then use that fiberglass shell as a mold.
A design can be protected with patent, but I think all a copier has to do is change the shape by a certain percent to qualify as a new design. And since the top is easier to change without R&D...most just do that.
As far as copying going on...because it's tough to fight the legal battles, it'll probably continue.
jer
This is a good question for Old Rigger. OR, where you @?
Hi Del, "splashing" or copying a hull was pretty common in the 70s and early 80s, as I recall. One of the magazines even wrote a couple of articles about it in the early 80s about the legality of it and some litagation that was going on at the time. As I understand it is fairly easy and cheap to copy a hull if you knew how to do it, in fact, Hot Boat had an article a few months back with a story about Hallet's new 27' cat. They showed a few shots of how Hallet made a mold from the original fabbed hull that they would use to pop all the rest of the new hulls from.
The most common hull that comes to mind when you start talking splashing is the TX-19. I dont know who made that first gull wing tunnel boat, but for a while it seemed like everyone and their dog had a mold in their shop. Some splashes were really high quailty boats and others left a little to be desired. If your looking at used boats it is pretty easy to tell the good ones because they will still be sound hulls, the junk ones will have all kinds of flaws evedent in the form of major cracking, rot, bottom and deck warpping, etc. That is one advantage of buying a used boat, you can see how well/bad it has held up.
Splashing is still going on in drag boats in a big way. For example, a guy has a hull that is no longer made, crashes the boat and cannot find a suitable replacement for sale,and the guy who has the molds is no longer laying up any boats, what's he do? This team has years in finding a setup with this particular hull and learning how to make it run quick and as safe as possible. What are they to do, switch "brands"? That's like starting all over again. It's bad enough chasing a setup with a different hull of the same design, because no two act alike, but to start with something totally new throws a team back to beginner status. In my mind splashing a similar boat is one of the only viable options. There are others who have taken a basic design and then modified it considerably to their own liking to the point that it is really no longer the same boat. On the other hand, to outright steal a design and then mass produce it, is a different deal than to preserve a good design that can no longer be obtained. I can't condone that type of theft.
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