Color As Different As The Boats Themselves
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This is one of those delicious stories that takes on life from many
perspectives. It is my favorite type of project, appealing from many angles.
It began last fall when a birthday put me on the backside of my 50s, and I
acknowledged the need for a more personal focus on fitness. With no
alarming medical issues beyond bad knees and the general aches and pains of middle
age, I knew it was time to incorporate a more formal program of staying in shape into
daily life.
Running is no longer an option for me, and walking doesn’t seem to be enough. I’ve
never had the bug for bicycling, and while I’ve kayaked since the ’70s in the Pacific Northwest, it works only the upper body and, at my level, is hardly aerobic.
Over lunch, my friend Pete Trogdon suggested I get into sliding seat rowing. Pete
began rowing in college and still enjoys the sport. Today Pete’s rowing boat is a
Chesapeake Light Craft wherry he built from a kit a few years back. When Pete
explained the many benefits of the low-impact, total muscle group workout one
experiences in recreational rowing, the light came on for me.
While building a Chesapeake Light Craft kit boat is immensely appealing to me, I just
don’t have the space or time for a project like that right now…maybe in a few years. So I
contacted Bill Larson of Little River Marine, and we discussed the purchase of a fiberglass rowing skiff that would be perhaps a better (and
drier) choice for me than a narrow rowing shell. The
company’s Heritage rowing skiffs come in three sizes,
but Larson suggested the 18-foot skiff as being the
most versatile for what I intended.
As I researched the sport, I learned that sliding seat
rowing burns more than twice the calories as running
at a recreational pace, and both Pete and Bill were
keen on the low-impact nature of its movements.
When I mentioned my experience with kayaks,
Larson commented that you won’t find a kayak
machine in the gym, but a rowing machine is one of the best exercise machines found in a quality gym.
So I bought a slot in the production schedule for a
new Heritage 18 and made plans to stop at Little
River Marine’s shop in Gainesville, Florida, on my
next road trip south, to get the boat and bring it
home.
But now the plot thickens. Over the last couple of
years, we’ve been talking with the folks at Awlgrip
about how to best tell their story of custom colors.
Awlgrip has long offered custom colors to its
customers, and these days it is not much more
expensive than a color selected off the standard color
chart. Awlgrip’s hugely experienced lab technicians
can match almost any color on the planet in Awlgrip.
It is fascinating, yet not well known to the general
boating public.
Perhaps one reason for this is the fact that Awlgrip
is a coating system that requires the talents and expertise of professionals, trained craftsmen who
blend technical experience with artistic flair. It is
beyond the abilities of the do-it-yourself boat owner.
The meticulous steps of an Awlgrip paint job, from
initial preparation to paint application and curing, are
precisely the same on every boat, whether sail or
power, old or new. And, unfortunately from an
editorial standpoint, such a project takes time on
boats as large as trawlers. So I saw this as a real
opportunity: to Awlgrip the rowing skiff in a custom
color. The specific steps of the process would be the same as when painting a Grand Banks 49, and the
smaller size of the 18-footer would be more
manageable to document, making it easier for readers
to visualize the complete procedure.
So I made a couple of calls, and all saw this as a
story line that really rocked. We would cover a
complete, professionally applied Awlgrip job, go
behind the scenes of creating a custom color, and
explore the joys of sliding seat rowing——all in one
project. Perfect!
Steve D’Antonio and I met with Awlgrip’s Jeff
Grandgenett and Jock West to discuss the project at
length. I had already chosen a unique color, a lovely
light green, soft and soothing, yet with character.
Jeff would pass the job of reproducing the color
on to the lab but required that I give the new
green a name. Without thinking, I offered “Laurene
green,” after my wife. (Darned good move on my
part. She was absolutely thrilled when I told her
later. Her namesake will now live on in the Awlgrip
database forever and can be recreated precisely
again and again.)
It was decided that our technical editor, Steve
D’Antonio, would oversee the prep work and painting
of the skiff, and document the Awlgrip job with an
article. So I booked tickets to Waukegan, Illinois,
home of Awlgrip’s color lab, to learn all about
Awlgrip, while Bill Larson’s crew built the new boat.
A COLORFUL BUSINESS
On the shores of Lake Michigan is a
manufacturing facility of the Marine and Protective
Business Unit of International Paint. It is a division of
Akzo Nobel, the world’s largest coating supplier, and
home for Awlgrip North America. Netherlands-based
Akzo Nobel is the third corporate owner of Awlgrip
since it was started in 1973, and the global company’s
brands also include Sikkens and Interlux, as well as
others. It is a world leader in coatings, with almost
62,000 employees in 80 countries.
David Halcomb is vice president and general
manager of Awlgrip North America, and was kind
enough to give me a tour of the Awlgrip facility and
introduce me to the key people who are responsible
for the custom color business. He is extremely proud
of the Awlgrip product line and said the 30-year-old
paint formula remains one of the most durable,
highest quality coatings in the yacht industry. David
fondly recalls the time in the mid-’70s when the
company knew it had a success on its hands——when
the word “Awlgrip” went from noun to verb, as in,
“This boat was recently Awlgripped.”
The standard Awlgrip color card has some 60
colors, including several metallic colors. The card
changes (or evolves) about every four years, depending on what people are buying. Often, colors
are brought out of retirement as trends change.
For many years, custom Awlgrip colors were
almost all “private” colors, named for specific boats
or builders, and strict rules applied about not sharing
or reproducing them for other customers. That
practice is no longer followed, however, and the
company tries not to name colors after boats or boat
companies for that reason.
I heard the histories of several custom paint colors,
such as “Fighting Lady Yellow,” named for a race
horse stable. Of course, we all know “Stars & Stripes”
from the America’s Cup.
Halcomb has been with Awlgrip for decades but
isn’t ready to leave any time soon. “My goal in the
next 10 years is to give the industry what it needs to
carry it for the next 30 years, taking into account
changing government regulations,” he says.
THE COLOR QUEEN
David introduced me to Beth Behrhorst, who is
the front line in the custom color process at Awlgrip.
She is responsible for the database of custom colors,
and she informed me that Laurene Green’s database
number is H4232, joining more than 4,100 color
choices and a list that continues to grow each month.
Talk about custom colors! Would you believe there
are 812 unique Awlgrip greens (with an additional
194 in Awlcraft, the equivalent acrylic product), 1,226
Awlgrip blues (with 424 in Awlcraft), and 795
Awlgrip whites (and 327 in Awlcraft)? That is simply
amazing. Yellows and reds and tans and whatever the
imagination can come up with. So far, the Awlgrip
color wizards have been unable to match fluorescent
colors, but they have not given up.
Beth receives requests for custom colors from
40–50 distributors worldwide, responding to
boatyard inquiries. Beth explained that the lab needs
but a 2-inch square of the requested color sample to
match it in Awlgrip. And the requests come in many forms, some as unique as the color. She has had to
match the color of a specific red wine, a Beanie Baby,
a sports team ball cap, globs of old paint in the
bottom of a can, even cloth.
If you are interested in painting your boat a custom
color, Beth suggests going to a hardware store to get
paint chips. (She said Ralph Lauren paint chips are
exactly 2-inch squares, by the way.)
Another suggestion is to go to a beauty store, buy
nail polish in different colors, and try to mix it to the
color you want. There are many ways to get a
sample together, and Beth stressed that one only
needs to think creatively to get it. She did warn not
to use those PMS (Pantone Matching System) color
wheels, as they vary from company to company and
change every year. They are approximate at best, so
she won’t go with a PMS number; instead, she
requires a sample of the requested color.
She also mentioned that if you ever see a boat in a
color you like and can find out where it was painted,
it is likely an Awlgrip or Interlux product, and
therefore can be matched with no trouble.
She recently got a call from a fellow who wanted
to paint his white hull a dark blue and then cruise
the Caribbean. She was successful in talking him out
of it, as concerns for post-curing are an issue. Beth
explained that a dark hull gets three times hotter in
surface temperature than a white hull, and, as a
result, the resin in the hull continues to cure in the heat…and shrinks. This leads to fiberglass printthrough,
which can ruin a properly applied paint
job. (Steve D’Antonio talks of this in the following
article about the painting of the skiff.)
MAGIC COLOR MACHINE
Inside the lab, Beth introduced me to Frank Giles,
color systems specialist, and one of the color
wizards of Awlgrip. He told me their work is not
black magic but very precise chemistry. (I was
instructed to not have my cell phone or cameras in
the lab due to the highly flammable chemicals. As a
result, I was unable to shoot any images of this very
cool place.)
Frank showed me some paint samples he had
matched by using a color reader (called a
spectrophotometer), which provides exacting
specifications of the sample. Frank then puts his
creations under three different light sources, widely
varied, to see if they are consistent in all light ranges.
Inside the light booth were four seemingly
identical orange squares matched to the orange chip
he was working toward. In one light they seemed the
same, but switching to another light temperature
made one turn almost muddy, the other slightly blue.
It was really interesting, and I could easily see the
challenge of getting it right.
“Remember,” Frank told me, “color is nothing
different than the light reflecting back off it.” And simply matching the paint is only one step in the
process, he was quick to point out. “Ninety percent
of a great Awlgrip job is preparation. The top coat is
nothing without all the right steps to get the base the
top coat is put on.”
Bob Waldon, another of the lab specialists, added
that they can’t match every color. Some samples they
receive are composed of three different colors, which
is impossible to recreate with one coat of paint.
The color lab matches between 80 and 100 color
samples a month, mostly in the aerospace markets, as
well as for yachts. The variations of paint themes on
commercial aircraft are vast, and photos around the
lab of the dozens of airlines attest to the variety of
colors, images, and graphics. It is a big business, and
the coating requirements for commercial aviation are
much more demanding than those for pleasure
boating.
“Correct color-matching and reproducing it
precisely is chemistry and math…and a good eye for
color,” Frank told me. And Bob summed up the lab’s
mission statement with a question he would pose to
a customer. “What’s your interpretation of that color?
Let’s work toward that.”
When I asked one of these color gurus his favorite
color, he smiled. “I don’t have a favorite color, but I
don’t like working with green very much.”
A big step forward in the last few years is the
company’s AwlMix Color Management System. It is brilliant. Once a custom color is created in
Waukegan, the precise specifications of that color
become a formula of chemicals, available to the
distributors around the world.
Working from a base inventory of basic paints, a
distributor can recreate any custom color from the
data sent from Waukegan. There is no need to
inventory custom paints, ship expensive product
around the world, or create a monster of inventory
and distribution management. The AwlMix system is
the key that allows custom colors to be not much
more expensive than a standard color, and the prep
work at the boatyard is the
same regardless. For our
project, the company that
mixed Laurene Green was
Fawcett Boat Supplies, the
Awlgrip distributor right
here in Annapolis.
Amazingly, the entire
turnaround of a new color
occurs within 72 hours. It is
a skill and expertise one
senses while walking
through the labs and
various workshops at
Awlgrip. It is a very
impressive facility, with 120
people working in the
aerospace and yacht
coatings business.
A THING OF BEAUTY
There are many reasons
to paint a boat. Gelcoat
fades over time. Paint wears off. Sometimes you just
want a change. Color is a celebration of our lifestyle’s
many faces, and painting a boat in your own personal
favorite color is also an expression of yourself. It’s
that simple.
The project is done now, and the green Heritage
18 is in the water and looking pretty. Thanks to
everyone who took part in this project, and thanks to
Bill Larson and his crew at Little River Marine for
building such a nice boat.
Now, as I learn the intricacies of proper rowing
technique, I am happy that I have added a routine to
my daily life that is all about taking charge while
enjoying the spiritual renewal that comes from being
on the water.
White boats, look out——your days are numbered.
Go on. Express yourself in color.
Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2006 © Dominion Enterprises (888.487.2953) www.passagemaker.com
You are reading the text-only copy of this article. To access the article as it appeared in PassageMaker Magazine, please log in to purchase and download the PDF version of this article.