RE: [Paddlewise] Nadgee, Max, Boat Copying

Peter Treby [mailto:ptreby_at_ozemail.com.au] wrote
Subject: Re: Nadgee, Max, Boat Copying


>>>>>>For purposes other than attaching legal rights, a
designer might look at a boat and detect resemblances to his own designs,
and there may be, but if the boat is not identical, when is it legitimate
for the designer to squawk "ripoff" and when not? <<<<<

When the copy-cat has used the designer's work to save himself a lot of hard
work then it is a rip-off. That makes the Nadgee a rip-off.

>>>>>>How much new design work,
or in Matt's world, how little change does the thief need to apply to
deceive, before a boat design is new? I am reduced to just posing these
questions, because try as I might, I can't come up with anything better than
something like "It's a matter of degree."<<<<<<<

He can do all the new design and modification work in the world and
completely disguise the fact that it is a rip-off but if he started with the
designers work in a direct manner, such as splashing a mold off an existing
kayak or used the designers offsets or a reproduction of them as a starting
point, without permission, then he has ripped-off the designer. If he looks
at and paddles several designs, and then, starting from scratch,
incorporates features or similarities to those shapes in his own design he
has not ripped-off the work of those designers that inspired him to make a
part of his kayak similar. If you use the same words but change the font and
font size, is it not still plagiarism? If you read several authors and then
write your own article based on what you read but don't use the same words
it is known as research and no plagiarism has been committed. The rip-off is
in saving yourself effort by using the work of another without their
permission. That definition seems pretty simple and unambiguous to me. Just
because it looks something like another kayak does not make it a rip-off
unless the claim is made that it is the same as the other, to play on the
first designs reputation, then that is fraud rather than theft. That is why
I keep asking you if the Nadgee builder started with offsets from the Max.
Because that is so and is likely why you keep trying to dodge that question.


>>>>>>"Why don't you answer the simple questions I put to you in my last
long
post?"
For the reasons set out in my last long post. I've asked once, I've received
an answer satisfactory to me and relayed it.<<<<<<

That answer you received also dodged the issue, didn't it?. You, the lawyer,
are somehow satisfied with it none the less. You either don't want to know
or don't want to say what you know.

 >>>>>And a further one, I fear an
endless series of questions from you beyond the next answer. At the end of
that unwelcome cross examination of my friend, if there was an end, you
would not be satisfied that the Nadgee was not a copy of the Max,
and I would not be satisfied that it is. <<<<<<<

That is pretty presumptuous. I'd say you are projecting what you do as a
lawyer, onto me, to fear this. The only other question I can think of is one
I've already asked (that you have also already dodged). Did the Nadgee
builder change the prototype to add harder chines when he found out the Max
had harder chines?


>>>>>>>Another reason to suggest you'd
be better going direct, is that chinese whispers lose accuracy in telling.
Just look at thestory of the Nordkapp to see how things get changed
in the telling, and accuracy lost.<<<<<<

I've already heard from those involved. I want to know what you were told by
the builder. That is something you have direct knowledge of so nothing will
be lost in the whispering hearsay you claim to be worried about. I can
understand you not wanting to hound your friend further about this, I'm only
asking what exactly he told you about the relation of the Max to the Nadgee.

Here is another possible, but troublesome and expensive method of
checking for direct hull copying. Take a mould off one
boat, and place the boat to be compared inside it. For this purpose, the
mould materials do not need to be made as robust as a production mould. I am
confident the Nadgee is highly likely to pass such a comparison.<<<<<<<<

That method won't work because a slight modification to make the hull (or
even the keel) wider or longer in some area would make it not fit in the
originals mold even if it had been splashed in the first place. Since the
Nadgee was made from offsets simply putting them a fraction of an inch
further apart than the original would make that kind of rip-off not fit in
the originals mold. a further confounding is that molds often warp some due
to shrinkage and how they are stored.

>>>>>>>>"If the visiting paddler told me I don't recall it now" Your lack of
memory
serves you well.<<<<<<<

I don't see how. What difference would it make? If I was told, I wasn't told
that this kayak was going to be sold commercially and possibly compete
against me using my own design. The only trouble I have with individuals
ripping off my designs (and I have given my permission in the past to
individuals who asked me to use the Sea Kayaker offsets as a basis for a one
off hull) is with their hull later finding its way into mass production and
competing with me in the marketplace. For example, a friend has made kayaks
based on the Coaster and Mariner II with our permission and advice. We have
granted permission, but we always extracted the promise that they would not
let anyone else copy the design or mold their boat, and explain why. My
friend was offered a tidy sum to let a builder splash his Coaster-like
kayak. In another instance, I suggested to a guy (who wanted to buy plans
from us) that he could blow up the Sea Kayaker offsets for the Max and we
gave him permission to do so as long as he not pass on the design to others.
Unfortunately, he found the offsets not close enough to the Max for his
liking and made a device to copy the Max exactly to get its offsets directly
from a boat (something I definitely did not give my permission for him to
do, but he took it that way because I suppose we had been so helpful and
accommodating to him). We helped this builder out in several other ways
along the way mainly with free advice. Later, I find out that he is telling
everyone on a home builder's forum how to build the equipment to rip-off
other designer's hulls and he claimed his doing this had my full approval
and blessing and even suggested us as a great resource (unpaid consultants)
to anyone who wanted to do this kind of thing themselves. To say the least,
I was horrified when I found out.

>>>>>>>"Of course, there is a lot of difference in somebody making
themselves a
copy for their own use and somebody selling that copy and potentially
competing with the originator."
Do you approve of one-off copies of your boats being made by
do-it-yourselfers?<<<<<<<

If they ask my permission and agree to my terms (mainly to never pass on the
design to others or go into business with it) I have in the past, several
times. I'd be more hesitant today because of my past experiences though
(some detailed above).

>>>>>>"Had Sea Kayaker's section lines showed the keel better I suspect the
Nadgee
would be even closer in this respect than it is."
You are being too suspicious. For you to come up with that sort of
supposition makes me certain that one enquiry of Dave is enough. Comparing
my boat, and my photograph of the stern of the Nadgee, with the Mariner XL
photograph on your website, they are different. You will believe that they
are different because of faults in the copying method, I will accept that
Dave was not copying the Max, and came up with his own keel shape.<<<<<<<

He had to come up with his own shape there, he had little to go by in that
area (how the rib-keel blended in with the hull) because of the limitations
of the offsets he worked from, but the profile view was good, and he copied
that profile view of the keel very well indeed. The fact that he hardened
the chines on the Nadgee when he found out they were harder on the Max makes
your contention that he wasn't trying to make a copy seem kind of foolish.


>>>>>>>>"The foot pumps I've seen only have a small fraction of the output
of a good
hand pump."
The foot pump fitted to my boat is slower than a hand pump, but not a small
fraction of the output. <<<<<<<<<

We need to define "small fraction" here. To me that means 1/4 or less. How
much slower is your foot pump? What brand or type is it? Could you describe
it? What hand pump are you using? What are its dimensions and rated output?
Sea kayaker found the gray and red Beckson hand pump (with the roughly 2" by
18" tube) put out about 4 times the output of the deck mounted Henderson
"Chimp" hand pump once widely used on British sea kayaks..



>>>>>>"Which particular raised fittings do you think you would bark your
knuckles
on?"
Several I have seen fitted here. Some raised deckline fittings are worse
than others, but just as you don't like lumps and bolts under the deck, I
don't like hard lumps above the deck, as far as they can be avoided.<<<<<<<

I was referring to which specific eyelets on Mariner kayaks were the ones
that you felt you might bark your knuckles on. I was asking you to be
specific about which ones might give you trouble (rather than just make the
blanket and vague condemnation you made). Could you be specific about which
eyelets you might hit with your knuckles? For example; today I looked at a
Romany Explorer on a car in the parking lot. It had little plastic recessed
fittings with a metal bar across them embedded into the deck in many places.
The hard melted end knots from the cords stuck out right in the area where
ones hands cross the deck during on nearly every kayak stroke. Now that's
something I might bloody my knuckles on. I'd suggest the user should move
those hard knots to somewhere else on the deck if it is possible.


>>>>>>>"I'd love to have every kayak designer hooked up to a (perfect) lie
detector
and ask them just how their designs came about."
You are suspecting what I say is an advantage for the kayak buying public.
Do you know of other chains of kayak development other than the descendants
of the Nordkapp? You have data on 700+ boats. Do some DNA testing and trace
them all back to a few common ancestors.<<<<<<<

I have data on well over 3000 single kayak models worldwide, of those I've
only been able to paddle about 750 (mostly North American ones and those
imported here). I know of many lines of development. For instance, Derek
Hutchinson has about 20 models (if you count different cockpit sizes as
different models anyhow) but basically they are modifications of two early
hull designs--that I think were his originally--its hard to know for sure
about that). BTW, it is perfectly okay to rip-off your own designs in any
way you want and change them for better or worse in any way you want.
I could list a lot of rumors I've heard about which kayaks were rip-offs of
other kayaks but I have no real proof of most of them. At times I've gotten
a chance to look at some of those hulls side by side and in many cases I'd
say the rumors are probably true. Being still in the kayak industry, and
therefore could be seen as having an axe to grind, I'm not going to start
passing on those rumors here, just yet anyhow. As an amateur student of
modern kayak history though, I don't mind collecting these rumors, and
recording them in my personal notes as such. So if anybody has a rumor they
have heard (or better still good evidence) please e-mail me about it and
I'll let you know if I've heard it before or not and what evidence there may
be that it is true or not.
BTW, Howard Jeffs may be connected to the Anas Chick (a small version of the
Anas Acuta he is reported to have made for his children). This may be what
caused the confusion about where the Anas Acuta came from (that was
corrected earlier). BTW, Anas Acuta means "sharp ass" and is the Latin name
for the "Northern Pintail" duck.

Matt Broze
www.marinerkayaks.com
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