Let me know what you think of this

[klos]

This was posted on a similar boat building site. It caused quite a bit of contraversy, wether this type of "splashing" is considered ethical or legal if it was for personal use and not for profit or to get into the boat business. The problem some people had with this is that you would be stealing the boat builders design. Please let me know what you think.

(Quote)
"I was wondering if anyone has done this?
Take an existing hull, pull a female mold from this hull to then make your own hull. I have done many repaires / rebuilds on older boats and am very familiar with fiberglass repair but I have never built a boat from the ground up. I thought at first I would design and build my own hull but I would rather use a design that has already been proven and tested.

The design would be a 25'-28' non step offshore / performance style V-hull, from the 1980's no longer in production.

Any info is much appreciated."

 

[stevieray]

Re: Let me know what you think of this

Looking at this from the outside in - to do a one-off build like that would seem very un-economical to me. I would think you could find & buy an existing hull one hell of a lot cheaper & for a lot less time & effort than a ground-up mold job. Regardless of ethics.

 

[Paul Moir]

Re: Let me know what you think of this

As a purely ethical question rather than a practical one, stealing suggests deprivation. You need to identify who you are depriving, and what you are depriving them of. The deprivation needs to be translatable into monetary value for a legal deprivation. To summarize:
Can't steal nothing from nobody.
Can't get tossed in the clink because you stole someone's heart.

 

[salty87]

Re: Let me know what you think of this

practicality aside, i think when a builder or manufacturer sells a product they should be prepared for people to reverse engineer and/or tinker with it. i'm not saying they should let others make money off of it but once you've sold it onto the open market, you can't entirely control what people might do with it.

i'd prefer to read that this guy was using a hull he had bought but that's doubtful. i still think that as long as he's not in this to make money or build hulls for other people, then no harm done. the builder was already paid for the original hull and chances are this guy's attempt won't be competing with them.

 

[klos]

Re: Let me know what you think of this

I see both sides to this, On one hand I would hate to have someone rip off all my ideas and hard work.

On the other side, if I pay to download music and keep one copy at work and one at home is there anything wrong with that?
What about when we restore a boat and say you make a copy of a stringer, engine mount, interior piece, ect. essentialy we are making a copy of something someone else designed.
I believe the original poster wanted to build several hulls from this mold for racing.

 

[stevieray]

Re: Let me know what you think of this

The only problem I can see this guy having is if he's taking it into competition against others who had to get theirs "legitimately" - and winning. Then he'd hear some real witchin' & moanin'. But then again, with a 20+ year old design, maybe nobody would even care.

 

[Chinewalker]

Re: Let me know what you think of this

If you've ever been to a boat race, you'll see a LOT of pseudo splashing going on. I used to race Stock Outboard where most of the hulls were plywood. Not uncommon to see a boat win a few heats then see some other racers hovering around the boat afterwards, tape measure and notebook in hand... If something works, it's going to be copied, especially in racing circles. Some copies will work better than others - sometimes better than the boat being copied.

- Scott

 

[Solittle]

Re: Let me know what you think of this

Thousands of boats have been built that way - - - and sold. Here in Miami we call em the Hialeah Specials.