Originally Posted by Jolley

Brian, hope this project is a winner for you, after all you have put up with till now

JMJ, Supposed to be an excellent weekend....... I have to wax up my 25 OE and fire up the egg beaters and i'm out there

Found this info on Active Cats......... Also, something about Bob Morgan may have had some history with the molds/builds. From what I've read over the years 'Molds get around' as do partners............

http://www.offshoreonly.com/forums/g...nc-1984-a.html

Originally Posted by brian41

Its home

Originally Posted by bill63

The company went from image to express marine to ocean express. During the express marine era 1989 to 1992 ish Ross ran the company but investors owned it they quickly learned that the boating business wasn't for them. Jolly your boat has to be one of the first 25's built i believe that might have been the demo boat. Is it yellow under the paint ? My 25 raced under the name Push-It photos on the oe web site. BTW some of Ross's 39's from that era were Nicknamed Flower Pots they were built very light for use in S flordia if you know what i mean. This could be one of them.

Originally Posted by Jolley

JMJ, Good luck with the Drambuie boat this summer !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bill, When I repainted it I found stripes on the deck down the middle that went around the cockpit and went horizontal down the sides then went up on an angle to the stern. They looked dark and in three collors. I bought the boat from New Buffallo it used to be Ron Gifts from Pier 33 in St. Joseph Mi It was called WildCat, and yess it is kevlar and light, could have been one of 'those'

I found this from Adam Focht from Glass Daves Ocean X post from 2000, he mentions IMAGE Boats.
Also Dennis Kaiser was also one of Ross' partners back when...........................

I will answer your question with the information that I know. If I have left anything out or omitted anyone’s name then I apologize in advance.
Back in the late 1970’s, my dad (Ross E. Focht, Sr.) ran a division of Active Homes. His boss at the time showed an interest in a vee-bottom that my dad and his brother (Larry Focht) had bought (The Super Banana – a 27’ magnum as I am told it was) so, under instructions from his boss, my dad went to Florida and purchased an old vee-bottom that they first raced – the original green Activator. As my dad raced he met different people, and since his background was in construction (albeit homes, not boats) he was able to lend his talents and learn a lot about designing vee-bottoms from different people (I am told that the main people he listened and learned from were the late Don Aronow, and the late James Beard) My dad was convinced that he could design a vee-bottom that ran better than the one they had so they went ahead and lofted a plug, then built the mold and finally built their own first vee-bottom race boat – again the Activator. My dad saw people’s interest in racing and decided to sell his new vee-bottoms to the public as pleasure boats. It was at this time that James Beard of Cougar of England brought over one of his first wooden cougar cats and my dad went for a ride in it and was convinced that the catamarans were better. Now one thing you have to understand is that at the time vee’s were built of ‘glass and cats’ were built of wood. There was no comparison, the vee’s were stronger and held together in rough water whereas the cats did not. This is where the stereotype that vee’s are better rough water boats than cats started. This was only due to the fact that no one had ever built a cat out of fiberglass. My dad realized that even though cats were faster, more stable and required less throttle to achieve the same speeds as the vee bottoms, they needed to be built of the same material to really outshine them. So, he along with guidance from the engineers at Dupont came up with a laminate schedule and built the first all composite, cored catamaran in the world. The first time they raced the boat a lot of people had their eyes on that cat to see what it would do. When they dropped the flag, all the waiting, planning and work came to its fruition as the Express cat (which later went on to set a kilo record, national title and world championship all in the same year – a feat which I do not believe anyone has since done!) as it was called left the fleet behind and performed remarkably. Over the years many things have changed in cat designs, Skater came along and after experimenting with smaller boats, they looked at my dad’s first designs (PLEASE NOTE THAT SKATER DID NOT COPY OUR DESIGNS, HE ONLY STUDIED THEM AS REFERENCE AS ALL DESIGNERS DO WHEN COMING UP WITH SOMETHING NEW) We like to call Skaters first designs the second generation of cat designs, with our all new 38’, 43’ and 49’ the third generation designs. My dad over the years has had many partners under varying names: Active Marine, Active Catamarans, Image Boat Mfg (which built over 30 cats for Baja Boats), Express Marine, Express Catamarans, Ocean Express, Ocean Express Catamarans and finally today Ocean Express Powerboats. We have almost thirty years of experience in designs and just as importantly laminate schedules. (The main reason many of you are skipping around out there on boats of ours that are over 20 years old) I thank everyone who takes the time to read this; I hope that I have provided an accurate description of the beginning of composite catamarans. And again, if I have left anyone out I should have mentioned, please email me with your story and I will be more than happy to edit this post. Thanks all,
Adam


[ 01-27-2002: Message edited by: Adam Focht ]