Who splashed the cat???
 

I've seen a lot of talk about the origins of different cat hulls. So lets put together a list of who splashed what and which hulls are true original designs.

IE: Liberator splashed the 21' & 24" Skater...

cool idea . . .T2X we need ya!!!! :cool: :cool:

i would actually like to put togather a kinda family tree for all performance boats. find out the lineage of our boats. :cool: :cool:

this is gonna be a cool thread

I will go ahead and post on this thread just so maybe I can find out more about my boat.

What I am going to say I do not claim to be right just what I have been told.

Apache was winning races with there v-bottom and the cat boats were all getting to close so they decided to build a cat, I have someones name but I will have to look for it that made the first plug, from what I hear the first one that was a plug was wood and they did take it out in the water, from what i hear it is sunk. they made a couple of race boat versions and a couple pleasure versions then when the company was siezed by the government Jim or bill in ILL. bought the molds, then they traded the people at maximum thunder power boats the cat mold If they would lay up a yellow cat and a 47 vee (he bought that mold too). Thunder layed up the cat in the mold then when they got posesion of the mold they made the mold alittle different at the back so it would be there boat and not an apache. now they have sold the mold to blue lightning offshore powerboats and they have not made one yet out of it.

If any of this is wrong someone tell me or add to this any info you have.

And on my boat to make a long story short I got the yellow cat that maximum thunder layed up.

The 26' Talon was an original hull. Man, that hull has been splashed so many times, that i'm not sure what all is a copy. There must be nearly a dozen hulls coming off the Talon. It got so bad that Talon actually gave up making catamaran hulls and got into sport fishers.

I suppose another way to go would be "Who Did Not" splash/steal/pop a Skater.

That would narrow the field drastically.

Here's another one...

The 30' Lightning is a splash of the 30' Spectre, and to the best of my knowledge this is an original hull.

Not......

T2x

Here are some that I know of...

Shadow Cat was splashed and copied by American Offshore

Chris Cat was splashed and copied by Awesome Cat

Superboat I believe bought a mold from either Shadow or Chris Cat and made a few cats. Most notably Rolling Thunder.

The 21 Challenger molds were sold to and copied by Superboat and a guy I believe that is out of Connecticut. Not sure exactly, but GJL or T2x could surely straighten this out!;)

Liberator did splash the 21 and 24 Skaters.

I am looking forward to this thread.:)

So where did the 30' Spectre come from? It's not a Skater copy, is it?

How about the 30' Motion???

There never was a Rolling Thunder Superboat..... That yellow thing is a Baja.

Bottom line.... I can't think of one "splasher" who ever made a better version than the original.

Why.....? Because if you didn't design it...you can't fully understand all of the nuances and what was in the originator's mind....... Plus the type of guy who directly copies someone else is not going to be the type of person with either strong beliefs, integrity...or enough self confidence to create something worthwhile himself.

T2x

amen brother. . . . very well said

you forgot talent . . . if they cant design it im sure they dont have the talent to improve on it. .

Shane
I thought the Chris Cat was a widened splash of the Shadow. American Offshore, Awesome, and 2 or three others then splashed the Chris Cat.
Gary

When George and I left Shadow...he took the design...modified it for inboards (widened sponsons, changed dihedral) and went to Chris Craft. The Chris Cat plug was , in fact, a modified Shadow Cat...... but, since Linder designed it originally...... we'll cut him some slack......

The Shadows were faster with outboards... The Chris Cats were faster with BIG BLOCKS....Small blocks were a whole 'nuther story.

T2x......

;)

The splashing did a ton of damage to the marine industry as a whole, and to smaller high perf boat makers specifically since their profit margins are narrow to begin with ---- almost to the point that all that was left in the small boat market were splashes of splashes by design pirates and the actual hi-perf hull "designers" using their talents elsewhere.

A company could spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and several years perfecting their hull, only to have the design greased up and molded (popped) by design thieves merely weeks after its debut.

Since the design thieves had no time, energy or financial resources invested - only the use of an original hull to use as their plug - the crafts from these popped molds could be built immediately for a faction of what the original designers needed to recoup from their plug building, research and testing. And on top of that, pirates only splash boats that are already massively popular proven designs - and since these hulls are so popular, the pirate company needs very little marketing. In other words, not only do they avoid years of R&D expenses, but the marketing and years of testing expenses as well, which most builders will tell you is 90% of the total costs of orginal hull boat building.

This design thievery caused a massive stagnation in this section of the small boat building industry, especially during the last decade, as the top designers and the companies who hired them had no way of protecting their innovations, so they just quit.

The good news is that the 1998 Vessel Hull Design Protection Act will change all that, as long as original hull design companies actively register all of their new designs HERE:

http://www.copyright.gov/vessels/

From the hearings in 1999:
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COBLE on H.R. 2696, the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act:

"First, we will turn our attention to the Vessel Hull Design Protection Act. This bill in large part represents a legislative response to the case of Bonito Boats v. Thundercraft Boats, decided in 1989. In Bonito Boats, the Supreme Court ruled that so-called ''plug mold'' statutes enacted by the States to proscribe the copying of hull designs were unconstitutional. More specifically, the Court held that the States are preempted on this issue pursuant to the supremacy clause. In fact, the Court concluded its opinion by noting that, ''It is for Congress to determine if the present system of design and utility patents is ineffectual in promoting the useful art in the context of industrial design.'' I, for one, believe the system of design and utility patent is inadequate, and I furthermore believe that the we need this bill to protect those designers within the marine manufacturing industry from having their creative talents misappropriated from those who invest no time, energy, or financial resources into the original design of vessel hulls."

We had no less than 5 companies make direct splashes of our 18' Jaguar Racers- a design that took us 10 years to perfect.

Lightning Boats is one of those and to this day openly admits he has "popped" this hull and is very proud of this fact.
(See current thread at Scream and Fly)

Another company (now defunct) was a small outfit in Alabama named Warrior Boats, who not only splashed our hull in total, but photocopied our very own company brochure to hand out to potential customers at the races! That's gutsy!

And even one Texas-based company came to our shop and asked to take pictures of a couple of boats on the floor, pretending to be a potential customer. A few months later he begins advertising his "own" boat building business (apparently his hulls were to be splashes of our products) but this guy is so overtly bold that, in his Propeller Magazine ads he used the photos he took of OUR boats while he was visiting OUR shop!

The lack of scruples some people have is totally unbelievable to me.

After all these years the lack of believability is long gone.... Now that colleges teach us to justify any behaviour...and ignore "obsolete" concepts like honesty, integrity, effort, and respect.

There was a time when the buyer was a long term high performance buff...who could spot a "pop" at 100 yards and treat it with at least some caution. Lately it seems that having a modicum of success in dot.com ventures, or a chunk of excess cash from a trust fund, has filled the marketplace with purchasers whose frame of reference is the past 15 minutes....and who all consider themselves experts.

Part of the reason we left Shadow and started the one-off based Conquest Marine was the ability to make each boat unique...while creating enough reverse angles that no one could splash us.

T2x......

Cat,

The original hull manufacturer and designer was Mirage Boats, Inc. That was our company. Our company and designs were sold to Mike Mullins of Florida who now runs Mirage Boats.

For a peek at what our Mirage 18.3 River Racer looks like, that my husbands company designed, click here:

http://forums.screamandfly.com/forum...threadid=43627

OOops. My bad. That link wasn't to a Mirage 18.3 River Racer.... but sure looked EXACTLY like one.... fooled me!

Here's a real Mirage:

http://forums.screamandfly.com/forum...ghlight=mirage

Here's a question;


If they make the cowling taller or make a small change on the dashboard, can it still be called a Splash?

To me.....if someone takes an essential hull and remolds/"refines" it in some way.............. it's a splash.

T2x

P.S. That includes cutting it into 4 pieces and "speading" the quarters outward....something which is currently happening in offshore cats.

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.

1. Not all "pops" look exactly like the original. In some cases only the hull is used...after being cut down.....or drawn and quartered...it may take on a whole different appearance..... This is generally done by a more ambitious (or sneaky) pop "artist".... It still stinks. I have seen numerous pops that consist of..say... the forward 80% and bottom (up to the chines or top spray rail only)...... In this way the "splasher" can delude himself and others that he "built" an original plug..... when he fact he merely pasted different sides and a deck on somebody else's hull design (the business end if you will). A current favorite of mine is the boat, (nameless here) that consists of a 21 Shadow...with an extra 6 feet added to the stern.....as a "step".
Presto the "builder" got a proven bow and forward entry section, primary planing surface...beautiful lines and no cost..... Of course the fact that the aft section looks like it was designed in a high school carpentry class goes unnoticed.

2. Ford did not take a mold off of the Caravan........ and if they had would have undoubtedly suffered a lawsuit of epic proportions. A truly unique design (say the deep Vee of Ray Hunt)can revolutionize boating. Most hulls are derivative...and that's fine as long as you start with a blank sheet of paper. Let's face it... If you and I set out to design a 16 foot tunnel hull.... the end results will have more similarities than differences.... However, the fact that mine is 30 mph faster..... doesn't give every third party yahoo the "right" to rip it off.

T2x

30 MPH faster? I'd hope your boat would top 30 MPH. Having no experience in this field, mine would probably either sink or run sideways. Thus, the top speed of your design would equal the difference in speed between designs! :D

Shane, I think you said American offshore was a splash from a Shawdow. They bought the old Chris Cat molds. Ask Ed Ferro he goes by the name fasteddie I think.

31 AO
 

Yes, the 31 AO is from the Chris Cat molds. They bought them from Chris Craft. This design was way ahead of it's time.

wannabe

T2x-
So what's the scoop with the 30' Spectre then???

I thought it was an original plug and your friend GL even did some consulting on it.

Apache21 and wannabe,
Thanks for correcting my mix-up.

TopSpin,
Thanks for explaining reverse angles.

Miller,
You ask too many questions. Go back to business school.:p ;)

Shane

T2x that boat co. wouldn't start with a K would it ?