Since I obviously don't know, where did the 30' & 36' Spectre come from? Motion? Which are direct splashes? Which have been remolds/"refines"? Which have been "quartered" and stretched?

If we are not educated on the origins of these hulls, it makes it difficult as consumers to take a stand against these 'copy-cats' by not purchasing their products!!!

The owner of Spectre owned Motion and I believe origninated the copmany. Too many beers over the weekend has blured my memory, so I'm not 100% on that.

As stated on another board. The 30' Spectre is an original, I've worked on the wooden/putty plug before. The 36' is a blown up 35 Motion. It is bigger here and there. Spectre builds a GREAT QUALITY boat with lots of comforts and they run well too. Yes Jay and Edwin stared Motion together in the 80's

Come again? Don't understand what you're trying to say. Being someone without the requisite knowledge to spot a pop at 100 yards, I'd like to better understand what you're referencing.

Also, what is a reverse angle in a hull design? Why does that make it impossible to splash?

I understand that the following currently available boats (by no means is this a definitive nor exhaustive list) are original designs, can you confirm this?

-All Skaters
-3600 by Nortech
-5000 Supercat by Nortech
-50 foot Jaguar
-43 Tencara now available as a Platinum
-40 Platinum
-34 Extreme by Dave's Custom Boats (don't know about the smaller ones)
-30, 33 and 36 Eliminators (don't know about the smaller ones)
-377 Talon now made by Hustler
-30 AMT


Lastly, how much influence can a new design reference, borrow or show and still be considered a truly original design? In automobiles certain new models often influence later releases by the competition but the later releases are still original designs (think of how the original Dodge Caravan spawned a whole generation of mini-vans).

Thanks.

tx2 - enjoy all of your knowledge you share, but just a comment on one of your previous posts about chris cats and small blocks. I used to go to the races with the D'elia's and the m-66 / m-1 SPECIAL EDITION ran very well with a pair of small blocks (top gun as i remember 87'??) also set the speed record of 108.+ for average lap speed if my memory is correct. also the 'Jesse James' chris cat ran small blocks and wore the m-1 tag. Mike Jed

a reverse angle in a hull is a part of the boat which is build that can not be molded, if these are put into the design, and final product, the boat becomes what is know as a one off. Or there is only one exactly like it. If the hull with the reversed angle is prepped for a splash job and some incompetent idiot attempts to splash it the theory is it will never come out of the mold, and therefor he will be stuck with 2 huge pieces of fiberglass that will have to be destroyed to get them a apart. To simplify... boats ate made in 2 pieces usually... the hull and the deck. If they have to be destroyed to be mold-able it isn't worth the effort of a splasher. He is usually trying to get out the easy way anyways and reverse angles make the job too difficult for him.

Ernie

I'm sure T2x has pictures of what he is talking about.

I think the first thing that must be understood is that a "Splash" is not just simply a design that "looks the same".

For instance, a car that looks similar to another car may be a replica, but it isn't "splashed". Some of the fiberglass parts on it may have been greased up and molded (splashed), but unless a car is actually "molded", then you can't call it a splash.

A Splash is actually a style of design copying - called "Direct molding process", where an original hull is stripped and used as the "plug" to make a new mold. The original hull is "greased up", layers of glass applied on it, and now they have a brand new exact copy mold that they can now put immediately into production.

This entire "splashing" process can be done in as little as 1 week, compared to many months and sometimes years to build a wood plug from scratch, including the costly R&D, blueprinting, time, design testing, tooling, months of refinement, etc.

In fact, a splasher does not have to have any sense of marine architecture at all. By using the hull that has already been perfected, he just pops it. All the talent needed is stolen directly from the original designer.


REVERSE ANGLES:
If you are going to try to make a "mold" off of something, then every aspect of the design has to be angled to be able to lift out of the mold. Just like a cake pan.

For instance, looking at the hull sides on a boat (or a cake pan) . If the sides bow INWARD instead of OUTWARD, then this plug/boat is going to be permanently locked inside the mold.

But if these reverse angles are applied AFTER the boat comes out of the mold, then anyone who tries to "splash" this boat (without eliminating the lock first) is going to be in for a very frustrating surprise.

REVERSE ANGLES

For examples of a reverse angle, lets pretend these are lifting strakes on the bottom of a hull.

This one will come out of a mold
___ ______
\__|


This one will not
___ _______
|__\

reverse angles are, if you notice the side walls of the boat on the exterior if you notice the bottom of the seahawks they have reverse angles......

This link will take you to the current list of "original design" registrations.

http://www.copyright.gov/vessels/list/index.html

Unfortunately, only designs first made available and sold to the public AFTER 1997 can be registered. So this eliminates a lot of original designs from being protected under this new act.

According to this Vessel Hull Design Protection Act, it is up to the original designer to prove his design is original. The most obvious way it to have blueprints and photographs of the wood plug as it is being built.

A "splasher" would have no record of building an original wood plug, since he simply used someone else's existing boat as the plug for his mold.