Re:[Paddlewise] Nadgee, Max, Boat copying/ not moving on

"Peter Treby" <ptreby_at_ozemail.com.au> moved back:

>>>>>>The photos Matt makes available are helpful for
other Paddlewisers to see what this is all about.
I have been aware of the general similarity for a
long time, being a Nadgee owner, and having grazed
the Mariner website. While those who haven't seen
a Nadgee before will note the obvious
similarities, there are differences with the
hulls,  they are not identical. The Nadgee is in
the same family of boat hull shapes as Mariner
boats, but it is not a hand-in-glove fit with the
Max.<<<<<<<

 Let it be understood that there are two companies that have boats in this
so called "family" All but one start with the word Mariner in their names.
The one other is the Nadgee. There are no others being commercially sold (I
hope) at this time. The Mariner boats were the first boats in this "family"
and predate their bastard son in the land of Oz by many years. This is also
a very unique and different "family" from the others in the Order of kayaks,
the Class of paddling craft, and the Phylum of human powered craft and the
Kingdom of watercraft.

>>>>>That brings back the question whether the
boats are so similar as to make the Nadgee a
re-badged Max or not, not for legal purposes, but
from the point of view of Matt being entitled to
feel ripped-off. The whole of the information I
have makes me comfortable it is not, and
particularly the lengthy testing and changing
process with a paddleable plug, and a test boat.
Add to that Matt appears to have known of the
Nadgee's development from a very early time,
including the use of Max sections, before the
Nadgee was finished and sold. It is made and sold
in small numbers and there is a lengthy waiting
list.<<<<<<<

That makes it all right! Because I once heard that somebody was attempting
to use the (known by me to be  flawed) Sea Kayaker offsets of our Max and I
didn't immediately do anything to try to stop it. You don't realize how many
times I've heard rumors of a copy going to be made. I'm sure that I didn't
know that it was going to be commercially produced and even sold to at least
one customer in the area where we sell most of our kayaks. Did the Nadgee
builder tell that customer there was a very similar design in his home state
to the kayak he liked and imported from Australia? I've made suggestions on
more than one occasion that somebody interested in one of our kayaks who was
in Australia should try specific Oz kayaks because they might fit his needs
fine and therefore he could avoid the expensive and time consuming process
of getting one of our kayaks from here to there.

>>>>>>>Matt's email quotes:
"...The prototype was pretty heavy and rough on
the outside, but gave him an idea of what changes
he wanted to make.  He subsequently made a number
of modifications and started production. "<<<<<<

Now read this last part again, Matt, from my point
of view if you can. I still don't know the method
by which the Nadgee was made in full, but note the
end of this email: further changes made. This is a
report from someone other than Dave, so again, you
could contact him directly and clear the matter
up.<<<<<<<

The changes were mostly on the deck (and the one that hardened the chines
much more after he learned his copy wasn't as good as it could be). You are
grasping at straws here. The Nadgee is a slightly modified Max hull. The
differences are mostly due to the fact that he did not have better plans for
it than the flawed ones he lifted from a copyrighted publication. I showed
you this in his own words where he admitted where the design came from. What
more would it take? What more evidence do you need? Would he tell you the
truth if you asked him? What I would like to know is what the Nadgee builder
tells people in Australia who might wonder as to the origins of the Nadgee.
I already know he is not above profiting from someone else's work without
any compensation to them. Is he lying about it as well and enjoying the
reputation as the best kayak "designer" in Oz in the bargain? If you don't
know where the design came from as you claim after talking to him I can only
assume that is the case unless you are lying about not knowing. This
certainly tempts me to bring this discussion to some OZ paddling websites
and newsletters. You are right there was no law at the time to prevent this
but if he won't come clean on how the Nadgee came about I can certainly
expose him in his own market by simply telling the truth as I know it to be.
I'd say my evidence is rather overwhelming. There is a kayak in Europe
called the Svalbard that is a modified knock-off of one of our kayaks that I
also know just how it came to be. Maybe I'll expose that as well. The funny
thing was I learned about that when a builder/retailer from Europe came into
our shop and told us that our Mariner II was a rip-off of the Svalbard. He
was certainly right about the rip-off part just wrong about which came
first.

>>>>>>>"The builder was CC'ed this, so knew what I'd been
told already. I contacted the builder about his
intentions in regards to sales in America. This is
a small part of his
response in Jan. of  2003." "As (Name) told you, I
got the profiles from your Max
out of Sea Kayaker magazine, enlarged them and
overlaid them on the profiles I had already
drawn."
Why don't you contact him and clarify what
happened from that point onwards? Satisfy yourself
that he went on and changed the shape into a
Nadgee, not a Max identi-boat. Did that email tell
you that? Reflect on the fact that the Nadgee has
different handling characteristics, according to
your testing.<<<<<<<<<<

I know what changes were made. It is not an identical kayak. There is no
debate from here about that. The point is he did not start the process from
scratch but took our well proven design and made a few simple modifications
and called it his own. The best things about his kayak's handling and
performance are due to the rip-off. Your description of what your kayak
could do is what made me realize you must have a Nadgee in the first place.
He never saw a Max when he started but he had what I would say was the Sea
Kayaker tester's best review ever to help him determine what kayak he wanted
to copy. Sea Kayaker also provided him with the offsets to make that copying
process easier and then after testing what he had made he made the chines
harder when he heard that the Max chines were much harder. It is clear his
intention was to modify the deck to fit what was the accepted norm in Oz. A
while back you said he made many original changes to the kayak but you never
said what they were. Name three. I'll bet I can show you which existing
kayaks he got the ideas from because I'll bet those weren't original ideas
either?

>>>>>>"So you were right Peter, it looks likely I was
told that someone in Oz was attempting to use the
Max offsets in Sea Kayaker to make himself a kayak
(although I still don't recall that part of the
long conversations I had with the visitor eight
years ago). But, if you knew that I had been
informed about this, then you must also have known
about the builders use of the Max offsets from
your informant. Why couldn't you admit such on
this forum? I certainly gave you many chances."

You are supposing that I had full details of the
Nadgee's creation, which I didn't, and still
don't. There could be many details added, but
knowing that a process of change in the boat shape
occurred by experiment and testing of a plug, and
test boat, combined with an assurance that there
was no intention to copy a Max, I am satisfied.<<<<<<<

You just carefully avoided saying you didn't know the offsets from Sea
Kayaker were used. Do you know that they were? Are you a criminal lawyer?
You know, one who does his best to avoid knowing that his client is as
guilty as sin so he won't hurt his clients defense by knowing of his guilt.
You sure seem to want to keep your blinders on. Or is it just the cognitive
dissonance? Not wanting to know you are paddling a copy so as not to feel
badly about your favorite kayak. The evidence shows that there was an
intention to copy the Max hull as closely as possible while narrowing it and
lengthening it slightly.

>>>>>>Here is an additional element which governs what
attitude the designer of the original boat might
have when discovering a similar boat: What was the
intention of the subsequent boat maker? I think
Matt should conclude that the process was openly
stated to him. Before any Nadgee was sold, its
creator had received news that Matt wished him
well with it. Matt had been told of the use of his
boat's cross sections before he expressed those
wishes in 1995. I am happy with Dave's intentions,
and again, if you want to check this Matt, go
direct. I can't pretend to tell you what another
person's intentions were.<<<<<<<

Your dates are wrong. The Max review was in the Dec. 1995 Sea Kayaker.
Telling the visitor (1996 I guess) I wished the builder luck probably had
more to do with my knowledge that the Sea kayaker offsets were flawed and he
would need some luck to make a good copy of it (I'm sure the lines in Sea
Kayaker would make a nice kayak themselves but it wouldn't be quite a Max).
I certainly was not told that the builder was intending to build a kayak for
sale rather than just one for himself. at the time selling kayaks may not
have even been his intention. There-in lies the rub. Somehow, miraculously
this first time kayak "designer" comes up with a great sea kayak design. It
may have started out being copied only for himself but soon his friends, who
try it, want one too and before long strangers are beating a path to his
door telling him what a great kayak "designer" he is and wanting to give him
money for a kayak.  What happens next. Maybe the Nadgee will get a wider
reputation and one of the big sea kayak companies in the USA or Europe will
want to build it and offer the Nadgee builder royalties or a substantial
payment to let them do so. What happens then? At the minimum the big company
will find out it doesn't owe him any royalties at all and he won't be able
to collect from them because the design wasn't really his to sell in the
first place.

>>>>>>>"Also, please recall that you opened this whole
can of worms by asking a direct question to me:
"No guess necessary, as posted several times, a
Nadgee Expedition. What is the hull design history
of this boat?"
Recalling that, I now at least have enough of the
design history to be satisfied that an incarnation
of this hull shape type has been made in
Australia, and fitted out with bulkheads, smaller
cockpit, decklines, foot-pump etc, to be a fine
sea kayak.

"Is answering direct questions something I should
learn to avoid doing, as well?"
You're doing very well in relation to your
previous knowledge.<<<<<<

I'm afraid I don't understand you here in your last sentence..

>>>>>>>The history of the Nadgee's creation includes use
of some enlarged Mariner sections, according to
recent emails. It also includes Matt turning a
blind eye to that early in the piece, and
continuing to do that. I can understand that Matt
would not want to approach Dave about this in a
critical way now, having asked to be the Nadgee US
distributor in 2002, and having learned of, and
been reminded of the use of the Mariner sections
several times in the past without having made any
criticism at
those times. Matt's reason makes sense: he is not
selling boats in the same market and doesn't lose
anything. It looks a little lame and late to raise
it now. I still decline to go looking for further
details from Dave as Matt's proxy, for the reasons
set out earlier. And other than what has come out
to date, I don't find it all that interesting to
further question Matt on his previous knowledge.
He knew, he let it go for understandable reasons,
and that is that.<<<<<<<<<

Spoken like a lawyer. So, for the twenty or thirtieth time I hear someone is
attempting to make a copy of one of our designs. It would be a part time job
trying to track down all those rumors and 95% of the time the person who
planned to do it gave up along the way somewhere anyhow and it never came to
fruition. Where do you get that I heard this several times? The next time I
recall having any inkling that something funny was going on was when I
spotted the Nadgee on the beach when I was out testing kayaks at the
Symposium a few years ago. You better believe that that got my full
attention immediately and I set about finding out what had happened! After
getting the story from someone in a position to know I finally contacted the
builder to find out if he planned to sell my design in the US and warn him,
in a civilized way, that if he did plan to sell it here I better be the
distributor and profit from the arrangement rather than have one of my
competitors competing with me with my own hull design. I think I made my
concern clear.

>>>>>>I am grateful to the whole line of contributors to
kayak shapes and designs, from the Inuit onwards.
I am particularly grateful to Dave for taking this
idea for a rudderless boat that works, and
changing it in the way he has.<<<<<<<

It was the design for a rudderless kayak he is guilty of "taking" not an
"idea" for one.

Matt Broze
www.marinerkayaks.com
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