Thread: Hartley TS16 plans

Howdy Simon,

Some chap has worked for months to create those plans ... pay him back by buying them. If you like the boat .. this is the nicest way to show your appreciation.

The cost is TINY compared to the cost of the boat. So if you can't afford the plans, you probably cannot afford the materials.

You can get the plans from the association. There is some info here.
http://home.iprimus.com.au/youngenr/ts16/

A list of people to phone here
http://www.mooetchells.yachting.org....19&Action=Data

Best wishes
Michael

Ah .. the official site
http://www.ts16sa.yachting.org.au/

Hi Michael, I take your point, but Richard Hartley died years ago, and copyright doesn't last for ever. Also, have you ever tried dealing with the Hartley company in NZ. They take weeks to respond to online orders and are very rude when you call up to ask why. (check out the thread below) Thanks for the advice re the local association though.


http://dsn.au.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.p...st=0&sk=t&sd=a

US$48 (approx AU$70) from Hartley & Brooks, but one must set one's sundial
back 60 years to deal with them by email. Even further if dealing by snail mail ?

Out of interest, I contacted the TS16 association National Registrar.
Very prompt response, but the Association plans, whilst fully up-to-date for Australia,
come bundled with 12 months Ass'n membership & some other building & tuning
goodies for AU$150. Probably excellent value if you intend to build A-class & race,
although I doubt you'd be able to complete a boat in time to use the Assn membership
on the water...

To confuse matters, I see http://clarkcraft.com/ in the US of A also offer TS16 plans
at US$45. Yet Hartley's claim (a) not to use agents, and (b) to be the only up-to-date
source of plans... And copyright is good for 70 years after the creator's
death... Methinks the waters are muddy indeed.

On a more positive note, I see why Vern & others are so enamoured of the Vixen.
Niiiiice ! If one must own a stink-boat, it may as well be a really good-looking one...

cheers
AJ

So far over the last few years we have purchased three sets of plans from "Head Office" in NZ so to speak. yes they took a little longer to arrive than what was expected but to be honest a few weeks is nothing compared to the build time of any boat. As far as copyright goes pay up as a sign of respect if nothing else to the designer that has given us a design that was far ahead of it's time when first published and still is an easy enough boat to build for an amateur.

A.J. yes I would agree Hartleys 15deg and 20deg hulls have stood the test of time and are IMHO the best looking and handling ply/timber runabout around bar none if you want a good general purpose fishing/familly runabout, just have a run across Moreton Bay in a 15knot sou'eatser and you would soon agree.

Kev

Thanks for the info regarding length of copyright. I have no problem with new plans if they can be sourced without problem. I have a Hartley TS16 already (forty years old, solid as the day it was made and picked up for the cost of the trailer it came with). It's the best handling yacht I've ever sailed, but still mighty quick. More importantly, my wife loves it (she hates my Laser) I'd love to build another one at minimum weight just for racing. I could use the Hartley Assoc membership straight away, and all the extra goodies, so getting plans from the Assoc looks the way to go. Cheers Simon

Not all plans purchased would have been used,ie a boat built.Hence it would be reasonable to on sell these unused plans.

Simon
Barrie said they are out of stock at the moment - will have more in 3 - 4 weeks, but
the rest of their package certainly sounds tailor-made for you. Now if I could just find
one at the price of its trailer.... *sigh* Would be about perfect for what I have
in mind for it. (evil laugh)
cheers
AJ

Glad to hear you will get them from the association, will incorporate a lot of stuff that group have worked out over the years, so you will end up with a better boat.

Also, mopping up ...

Hartley may be dead, but if the legal right to those plans has been passed onto the company, then it doesn't matter. I am pretty sure the plans would have been updated in the time since their creation, so the date of copyright is from the last update.

Glad the association has been more immediately helpful!

Best wishes
Michael

G'day MIK
While you are in here, on the subject of copyright....
How much different from a base design does a new design have to be to
[a] avoid infringing existing copyright, and
[b] stand as a design in its own right ?

Using the TS16 as an example, if someone were to buy a set of plans, then re-
engineer the hull to modern specs & materials, redesign the foils & locations, lid,
cockpit lay-out & rig, would they then be able to pass the boat off as a new design ?
Or does the fact that the outer hull shape is TS16 mean the original copyright holder
would always have some claim on the revised boat ? And if so, to what extent ? Or is
that something open to commercial negotiation ?

Just curious, given the plethora of designs out there that are soooo similar, or directly
owe their genesis to someone else's existing design.
cheers
AJ

Yes, someone would be able to do that, but two things stop it.

1/ They need to be as knowledgeable about the boat as the original designer, which usually they are not (the devil is in the detail)
For example exactly that situation https://www.woodworkforums.com/showth...=kitten+jarcat

2/ the copying designer doesn't have the commercial reach of an established designer of multiple boats. If someone copies my designs ,,, they need a reach on the internet and worldwide as long as mine to make the small amount of money I do. I'll still be careful, but I think it is very difficult still to make money out of this game, and you have to know what you are doing and build the networks up over time.

Best wishes
MIK

Wasn't thinking so much of copying a design as using it as the basis for an improved
or different design. With, or without attribution to the original.

For example, a sailing club, knowing your aversion to complication & weight, might
commission an established reputable designer to create a new skiff class using
your GIS as starting point. They may specify the same hull shape, dimensions,
and foils, BUT with lower sides, significant decking, bracing, wings & an NS14 rig.
All properly engineered to the new stresses & strains, and having a more conventional
sailing club look about it. Whether it performs as well as the GIS is, for the sake of
this hypothetical, irrelevant.

At what point is your copyright to GIS breached ?
Can you say "OI !!! That's MY boat. Sod off!" ?
Could you claim a percentage royalty on the basis that a percentage is your work ?
Is there a cut-off percentage of change above which the boat is considered a new
design rather than a modification, rather like patents ?

I suppose as an extension of this, is copyright applied to updated plan sets retrospective
on earlier versions? In TS16s case, can other plans suppliers legitimately offer original
versions of TS16 plans out of copyright, while Hartley & Brooks offers current, in-copyright
version/s ?
cheers
AJ

AJ, someone who is competent enough to do what you suggest successfully is competent enough to start with a clean sheet of paper in the first place and would probably prefer to do so to avoid the compromises built into the original design. The people who copy and modify to the extent they can call it a 'new' design are generally not competent enough to do the job properly.

Richard

Howdy AJ,

The GIS might be a useful conceptual starting point ... but a boat for club racing doesnt need all the reserve displacement to carry four crew! I'll do a redesign to match the purpose that will outgun them on the water.

I think the real answer is still the scale of what could happen. The scale is unlikely to be big and such a boat would not be filling the niche of the GIS ... so it wouldn't affect my market much.

Another thing is, if you go as close to the original concept as that crappy Kitten is to the Jarcat, then there is no space for you in the niche anyhow.

It really is worth a designer's while to try to distinguish different niches in the marketplace and fill them. For example, I get more interest (in terms of hits) for the Eureka Canoe, which I think at least is superior to most of the other ply canoes around. It looks nice, works nice and is pretty light with well resolved plans. But I don't sell a lot of them - some, but not in proportion to the number of people that look.

I suspect because that part of the market is completely chocked up with other good, bad or indifferent designs, or it might just be my warm personality!

Copyright in the end is only for honest people, and thankfully, almost everyone is. Most people don't do bad stuff and regret it if they make a mistake and have done it without thinking clearly

MIK