RE: [Paddlewise] Boat copies

So does this boil down to:

Do you think it's a copy?
Is it the same size? And is it the same shape?  And do the parameters chosen
to define size and shape (no matter how sophisticated, who thought them up,
when they were thought up, where they were thought up) amount to any more
than increasing detail, and if so where do you stop!!!! 

How many commercial kayaks share similar design parameters?
Is there more to a kayak than the hullform? (clearly, IMHO)

Are the supposedly objective measures of quantitative engineering design the
only way of looking at this? - Every kayak I have ever paddled had a
qualitative feel, or signature if you like, characteristic of that boat. For
example, knordkapp HM, HS, and Jubilee I'd guess would all differ on some or
all of JW's copycat criteria below, but paddle them and they are all
distinctly knordkapps, ditto primary dimensions of GRP and poly p&H
capella's differ but they both have a strong capella feel when you paddle
them. All of them different and identifiable.

The mariner/nadgee debate is interesting because I don't know either boat
though. The hull shapes in the pictures sure look simmilar, but so do a lot
of boats. The simmilarity in this case is perhaps very marked because they
are both quite unusual. But then again the decks don't look very similar,
and unless the cockpits are really odd sizes the beam looks somewhat
different too. From the pictures I have absolutely no idea about the
dimensions.  Without sitting in both of them and paddling them I really
wouldn't know, and no one here seems to have done that.

Is one person's sleazebag tactics another person's legitimate design
methodology? There are after all a number of ways to skin a cat, as it were,
and a long history of boats evolving from previous designs no matter who
drew them.

But really does it matter?  I think this needs a value judgement, not just a
quantitative measurement. If I was going to buy into a mariner, or
guillemot design or John Winter's design I would want to buy into the boat
and the experience of the designer and quality of design produced (which
could be copied granted), but also the authenticity of the design - a copy
no matter how close a facsimile would still be a copy. Who wants a fake
Rolex? 

Cheers

Colin

http://www.kayakscotland.com/


----Original Message-----
From: owner-paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net
[mailto:owner-paddlewise_at_paddlewise.net] On Behalf Of John Winters

I was cleaning out some old files and found this hierarchy of
characteristics that I once sent to my lawyer when I felt someone had copied
a boat of mine. They never used it as a strongly worded letter caused the
sleazebags to back off.

In order of  increasingly finer detail:

1. Does it look like a copy to the trained eye?
2. Does it look like a copy to the untrained eye?
3. Does it have the same primary dimensions at a specific displacement (LOA,
LWL, Beam, Waterline Beam, draft +/- 2%)?
4. Does it have the same Prismatic coefficient +/- 1%?
5. Block coefficient +/- 1%?
6.Longitudinal center of buoyancy +/- 1%?
7. Longitudinal center of flotation +/- 1%?
8. Angles of entry and exit +/- 1%?
9. Are the sums of greatest positive and negative deviations at  amidships
and quarter sections less than 12.5mm.

The tolerances cover building errors.

No doubt some people will disagree but I think this would convince any judge
that the builder copied the boat.

Someone mentioned putting the suspect boat in the original boat's mold but
this won't work well due to the accumulations of shrinkages and distortions
from plug to boats.

Cheers

John Winters
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