Pirates Speak German, Too
Ray Aldridge, the designer of Slider (featured previously on Proafile) has alerted me that a firm in Germany appears to be trying to sell plans for the little 16 foot beachcruising catamaran - without authorization! They grabbed a pic from Ray’s site, slightly modified it, and put the plans on offer for a lot more than Ray is charging. They make no mention of Slider or the designer, implying the boat is their own design. I’ve posted the photo of Slider against the photo of the Segel-Katamaran 488 so you can make your own comparison.
I’m suitably outraged that this kind of piracy goes on even in the world of small boat plans, and that Tecpaper considers this kind of theft an ethical business practice. If you are a designer of small craft, you might want to take a look on their site to see if anything looks familiar.
The real thing: Slidercat.com
It seems you have had some effect?
http://www.tecpaper.de/xu_bp_segelkat-488.htm now returns a 404 not found
and http://www.tecpaper.de/ is an empty site with just an email address and a URL http://www.TecPaper-Group.com which contains the same page.
Congratulations on shaming a pirate.
Dave.
Arrrr, the scurvy dogs turn tail and run! No doubt they’ll be flying a different flag (URL) soon enough, so keep your eyes peeled, mates!
if they’d thought of changing it a little, say a mast in each hull, heh hehe
Piracy in the world of small boat plans is really astonishing and some consider it as ethical business. Piracy is a shameful act and should be avoided.