I was reminded last week about the complexity of intellectual property rights and just what recourse you have if someone blatantly and in a clandestine undercover manner sets out to learn the finer details of your product, in this case a boat, right down to measuring and videoing every aspect, and all done under a false name.

This unfortunately has recently happened to one of New Zealand’s leading fibreglass boat manufacturers, Tristram Marine, just two days after they released their extremely successful and unique Tristram 821 Offshore. [An Auckland-based fibreglass boat manufacturer’s design team member entered the Tristram Showroom under a false name and measured and took videos/photos of the new model].

Copying what the competitors have, especially if it is successful, is certainly not uncommon in the marine industry and probably has been done since the first boat was ever launched. Team New Zealand were a classic case of industrial espionage a year or two back when someone in their team ‘leaked’ some sensitive documents. When American designer Ray Hunt introduced the first deep vee, everyone followed, albeit with their own variations on his idea. If he got a cent for every deep vee boat that was built after that, he would have been a very wealthy man.

If you are a boat builder and you like an opposition design and want to get more accurate details, that the eye can’t divulge, then it’s probably not too difficult to find someone with that particular boat and then crawl all over it to get a closer and more detailed look.

I have seen first-hand overseas fibreglass boats being blatantly used as a plug for a ‘new’ design for local manufacturers. I doubt the overseas companies ever knew. Royalties, yeah right!

I first had experience of having a design ‘ripped off’ in 1986 when I was in Guernsey, Channel Islands, racing our Robson 23 catamaran, Sunday News. After winning the first two races, an English boatbuilder/designer secretly took a tape measure to the boat, in the dead of night. The result was a near copy of Robson’s hull design appeared the following racing season in England and it was super competitive. I know this because the designer told me many years later what he had done.

There are plenty of stories about Kiwi boats being built for Chinese companies, only to have then copied and sold under another name. We know this happened recently to Stabicraft and that same company in China has ripped off some other Australian designs. Back when Ramco were busy and exports to China/Japan were strong, they too suffered from ‘flopped’ boats and suddenly the export orders dried up.

Recently the same has been happening to some Australian GRP trailer boat builders who are seeing their models under different brands appearing around the world.

If it’s in the public domain, it’s impossible to expect your secrets will stay safe. It’s all hidden in plain sight, it’s just a matter of knowing what and where to look and then either copy or improve on it. But at least if you are going to pry on the competition, do it with some respect and let’s leave the spy stuff to 007.