Yachts & Yachting

Grapefruit Graphics have had plenty of experience when it comes to making a boat look cool – so Yachts and Yachting were sure that their Fireball ‘Pimp My Dinghy’ competition project was in good hands, even before they met with Grapefruit’s Andy Yeomans and Tony Gill at the company base in Universal Marina, Sarisbury Green.

As well as the stunning Farr 45 ‘Fortis Excel’, which wowed the solent with its chrome reflective topsides, Grapefruit Graphics have been responsible for a wide range of stunning graphic jobs, including the impressive ‘Puma’ Volvo 70 – a great example of how graphics can be used to transform a boat of any size – and the new Open 60 ‘Estrella Damm’.

The options are pretty much endless when it comes to making your boat look distinctive. As well as cut vinyl graphics, designs can be printed onto vinyl or even self adhesive sail insignia cloth. Vinyls today cover a massive range, from silver or chrome to fake wood, carbon or Kevlar – there are even vinyls now that change colour, at first view maybe blue and then when it catches the light it changes to purple and pink. Pretty much anything you can do paintwork-wise you can do with vinyl.’

What makes vinyl a good option?

In most cases vinyl is cheaper than paint, it’s easy to repair because it can be done outside on the water and it can be done with a small patch, instead of having to rub down an area and re-paint. Also, as much as it’s long term- most of the vinyls we use are guaranteed for anything from 5 years through to 10 years for colour fade and shrinkage and things like that – it can also be short term as it’s very easy to remove.’
Designs often combine painted areas with vinyl graphics as an example, on the Volvo 70′s ‘ABN Amro’ and ‘Ericsson’, both the work of Grapefruit, the letting was vinyl, but the design on the bows of each of the boats was painted. Sometimes sections need to be painted for speed reasons, maybe it’s a big area or for a smooth finish. These type of boats take such a battering, you need to be sure it’s still going to be there. Paint is a bit more durable in such extreme conditions, but Grapefruit has developed a method of sealing the edges of its vinyls so they can withstand a lot of punishment. When the boat is sold on after the race, the lettering is easy to remove and you are just left with the general colour theme or black hull. In a sponsor change, like Victory Challenge’s AC yachts their sponsorship from Red Bull, its much quicker and easier to remove one vinyl and replace it with another. On the other hand, graphics can be easily used to transform a boat completely, ABN Amro Two is a good example, its now Puma Team’s training boat for next years race and underwent a complete transformation through the application of a complete vinyl wrap covering the hull, probably our biggest achievement of the year – it was something that nobody had ever done before.
It was a massive undertaking but we were quietly confident that we could do it and we succeeded with a team of four people and just three days. The first three or four hours were spent just looking at the boat and meticulously measuring to make sure everything was perfect. It is important to take this time to properly plan out the entire job. Once started, the team worked very late into the evening getting into the system of what was being done – the team were very experienced with boat wrapping, but each boat is a bit different.

The Design Process

Where does a design start? Usually the customer has a vague idea of what they want, be it the font or some sort of graphic/design they want. This can extend from a simple Clip Art through to a picture or sketch. The ideas are used to generate a flat image on the computer. Yachts and Yachting were not entirely sure what they wanted for the ‘Pimped’ Fireball apart from the fact that they wanted it to have some sort of impact and tie in with the winners personality. As Kirsten had described herself as “a blonde water baby” we felt that something a bit girly and a bit surfy would be appropriate – pink it had to be, also that giving a name to the boat – ‘Pink My Ride’. A number of designs were sketched on paper to get an idea for them to look at and then it was down to us.

The idea was to wrap the topsides of the boat and turn it into a mirror. The chrome is a foil material, quite a tricky material to work with, but it was a good boat to do it on due to it’s flat sides, which give a great background, and then the additional font design and graphics were cut decals to be applied on top.

Preparing the graphics

Starting with a roll of vinyl, the design is sent from the computer to a plotting machine. The graphics on the computer are vectored so the cutting machine works just like a printer, reading lines instead of colours, and is equipped with a very small knife blade instead of an ink head. This blade cuts the shape in the vinyl, without cutting through the backing paper. The excess vinyl is then removed to leave the cut shape on the backing paper which is then ‘laid up’ with application paper.

Applying the design to our Fireball

The chrome itself was fitted first straight off the roll. It was cut to a length slightly bigger than the boat, then applied by hand. After the chrome was applied it was trimmed by hand. Next the grey and pink decals which were pre-masked in the office were applied. Firstly they were pinned in place with masking tape and then a masking tape hinge added to allow the decal to be folded back, and the backing paper removed. The graphic was then applied by working the air out from the middle with an applicator downwards and outwards. The application paper is then removed ‘et Voila!’

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The following companies were involved with ‘Pimp my Dinghy’:

Gill – www.gillmarine.com
grapefruitgraphics Graphics – www.grapefruitgraphicsgraphics.co.uk
Harken – www.harken.com
Marlow Ropes – www.marlowropes.com
Pinnell & Bax – www.pinbax.com
Selden Masts – www.seldenmast.com
West Country Boat Repairs – www.petevincent.co.uk
Yachts & Yachting – www.yachtsandyachting.com