Originally posted by Cas:
Geez, did Tahiti have any other pattern in the 70's? Both of my 18's had the same thing. I still like the lines of those boats...
Hey Cas,
you just reminded me of a gel-coat story from 1976. We were at Hawaiian at that time and the Bicentinal was a real big deal then, remember?
Anyway our taper was asked to something out of the ordanary for a few 'special edition' boats, this was on the same hull as that Tahiti pictured above. Art was the tapers name and he later was a gel-coater. They wanted him to tape in a waving American flag across the decks of this these boats, and the rest of the hull was red white and blue. In fact that year we made tons of boats in the red/white/blue combo, very popular.
Art worked his ass off trying to figure out how to do it. Sort of unchartered territory at the time because as you pointed out, all the tape jobs were pretty basic. Had it been a straight forward American flag, it would not have been such a big deal, but this had to be waving and that sort of complacated it for Art. He finally got in nailed down and they shot, built the part and pulled it. Everyone in the shop was there to look at the thing and I can remember, even though it wouldn't have been my choice for a paint job, it was pretty cool. Everyone was oohhing and aawwing over it until my dad, an ex Marine, noted immediately that it was backwards. Art had put the stars on the right side and the proper way to have a flag displayed with them on the left. We all watched him struggle (including dad) with the tape process but it didn't occur to anyone about the thing being reversed. We still built the boat and sold it the way it came out of the mold, but I thought poor Art was gonna cry after all the time he had put in it.
On the other 'flag' boats Art made sure to get it right.
I wonder what ever happened to those boats. We might have even taken one to the boat show now that I think about it.
Again it was a pretty big deal as far as gel-coating goes.
Truth be told, it was probably not that great of a tape job compared to whats done today, and might look a little rough. Maybe I don't want to ruin the memory in my little brain by seeing it again today.
About the trailers, most of the local boats left on A&M trailers out of Bellflower or on a Wallstrong trailer. Both were built pretty tough, but were no-frill's trailers. The boats that went back east, and there were alot of them, were shipped without a trailer. The stories about loading the boats on the big trailers and the mishaps on the road are kinda funny too. We usually had 2 tractor trailer rigs on the road at all time delevering boats to just about everywhere.
[This message has been edited by old rigger (edited March 07, 2002).]