„Awwwwww, what a wonderful, sexy and beautiful sight!“, don´t you agree? I thought so intensively about this … blue … last weekend, as I was spending a sunny afternoon at the beach with my beloved girlfriend. We were so happy, especially me, watching her frolicking and having so much fun with my paddleboard in the refreshing water. Apart from her apparent physical beauty, that I adore and love as much as her wonderful personality, looking and at and longing for her sexy curves an idea suddenly struck my mind: This is the blue!
I mean, look at her Bikini. Isn´t that an especially intensive blue? Doesn´t it remind you of a perfect clear blue sky in summer? Or the chilling cold of a clear iceberg in the Southern Ocean? For me, seeing this intense blue kind of triggered a switch. And all of a sudden I thought that I´d maybe want my new boat having her hull painted in this wonderful blue. I couldn´t get my head clean of these thoughts. Strolling through my town, I began to notice much more blue vehicles … I guess, this is called the „red car syndrome“.
Painting or wrapping your boat´s hull?
Going out for a walk the other day we came by a nicely done VW caravan in blue/white and it looked fantastic. It´s not quite the color I have in mind, but again: I felt this positive vibe, this nice feeling when looking at such a strong but also light blue color. The fact that different colors have a very distinct influence over our humans, that colors can alter our emotions, is undeniable. Blue, especially the „skylight“ blue is far from being a polarizing or „trendy“ color nor is it especially alerting. I would say, it is a perfect color for a boat. But how should I have my boat get ist hull color?
Basically, there are two ways to colorize a yacht. To be fair, it´s three. First is the color of the gelcoat. In past years there were many colors available apart from standard white. Like blue, grey but also yellow and even green (though being a superstitious sailor, you should not ever get a green boat!). Due to the chemical properties and the tendency of gelcoat to chalk, nowadays it´s just white and grey, sometimes, but rarely, a dark blue. Most modern yachts are either painted or wrapped. I do have a pretty good exprience with both techniques due to the fact that many of our boat clients have opted for either one of both techniques.
Painting a yacht has a wonderful outcome, visually. It is just stunning how perfect a boat can look like when it is painted by a professional utilizing the latest colors working spotless and dust-free. We do have many clients with painted yachts, mainly (if not to say: All of them) are power boats. The downside: Any scratch, any slightest dent, damage or chipping will result in a crazy amount of very arduous and expensive work (done, of course, by the same specialist). In recent years companies like 3M came up with very durable, UV-radiaton and saltwater-resistant materials for boat wrapping. Maybe the booming car-tuning industry helped a bit.
Which blue to choose: The RAL formula guide
Of course, wrapping may also bring some compromises as there is no such thing as a 100 per cent „only advantage“-solution. But for me, certainly, the pros are overwhelming: Wrapping a boat like my Omega 42 will come with a price tag of around 7.000 to 8.000 Euros max. Depending on the level of detail-finishing, even lower. This is a budget a professional painter can never keep up with. There is another nice thing to wrapping: Once I´m done with the blue and decide I´d go for another color (or even return to the plain gelcoat white), I just rip it off, give the hull a decent polish and she will be looking like brand-new! But which blue should I choose?
As far as I know from the past wrapping projects, the amount of color choices are limited by the RAL-formula guide. Still, there are „fifty shades of grey“ of any colors so to speak, but this is also a tough decision. I know it from my past project: The Oceanis Yacht 60 I delivered lately to the clients is indeed covered with a plastic wrap. It took my customers literally hours in the shipyard to narrow in on two or three grey-iterations. And it took them another couple of weeks (and dozens of whatsapp-messages flying back and fourth) to make their final decision. Once applied, it´s sticking. And you´ll have to live with your choice.
Luckily, I have many months to go before I will have to make my final decision. Surely I will get a certified RAL-palette from the supplier of my wrapping to really think it though and make my choice. Much more, it isn´t just the color, it is also the decision for the style of the film itself: Should it be glossy, matte or with a slight or strong metallic flake effect? Well, for me, I can rule out the twinkleing metallic effect, but still, many decisions to make here.
This could be awesome!
In any case, this will be looking sick, I know it! The light blue will really propel the beauty of the Omega 42-design much forward and highlight her style for sure. Together with a white trim stripe and the signature Norlin-branding my ALPHA will be quite a sight when sailing. This nice hull color will look absolutely sick in combination with dark-colored sails and a white bottom paint antifouling. Awwwww, those mouthwatering thoughts are just as tasty as watching my dream girl on the SUP!
I can´t help but have to play around a bit with Photoshop to visualize my idea. It´s a clumsy graphic I know, but it gives a little impression on how the Omega 42 will be looking like when finally wrapped nicely. For now I will look for a thorough and professional wrapping partner in my vicinity who is willing and able to do this job with a high quality material and craftsmanship. At the same time, I´ll check the color palette over and over again to make a decision on the very one color shade I choose.
I just hope that I won´t see only blue boats from now on. In the coming two weeks I´ll return to the workshop of my yacht to resume some „real“ work. This will be the documentation of the Diesel engine fitting, the finishing of joinery and woodworks for the interior and – I guess that will be next – taking the digital measurements for the faux Teak deck-floorings as well as fitting the new custom-made coachroof-windows by Gebo. But anyway, for now I stick to the lovely blue Bikini of my darling, which brings some very special advantages of its own …
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