The Logo...

Everyone has a logo, right?  It's the sign of the boat, the trademark that tells everyone what you are sailing.  This holds true for mass produced boats, but what about those of us who build hull No.1 and that's as far as it goes? Well I wanted to have a logo too, something that would tell people halfway down the lake that I was coming down on them like a boatload of Malay pirates (this will be especially important once the deck gun is installed).  The aforementioned sinister looking lugsail would be an indicator that the Black Swan was approaching, but I wanted something even more distinctive, so my First (and only) Mate and I went looking for something suitable.

We originally hoped to find something similar to a swan in profile, with the wings swept back and the typical "S" curve to the neck.  We looked through zillions of clip art pictures and we found a couple, but we didn't find any that we liked.  But the unexpected silhouette we came across was even better, as it would add to the mystery, and the unique appearance of the boat.  The artwork we found wasn't exactly a swan (I have no idea what kind of bird it was), but that was quickly remedied with the computer and a little creative "drawing".

Above is the logo as we modified it before "processing" it to fit the sail.

We figured this logo would certainly be distinctive. We needed to do some work to get it big enough to see from a distance though.  As it stood, it could be seen from as far away as three feet.  This is where my First Mate, Lisa came in especially handy. She is a wizard with the computer.  All I do is say, "Make it so, Number One".  That gets on her nerves sometimes, but she's a good sport.

What she did was import the image into one of our graphics programs, enlarge it, and turn it into an outline.  After all, we didn't want to go through two or three ink cartridges to print it out.  The plan was to find a fabric paint that would be suitable for use on dacron and make the image into a stencil.  But again, while looking around, we came up with something even better.  I was looking through my stack of catalogs from boating supply stores.  While perusing the Sailrite catalog I came across the fast, easy (easier), and better way.  Sailrite sells pressure sensitive dacron by the yard for making numbers, etc.  It was ideal for the swan.  We ordered one yard, and the enlargement process was under way.

Lisa took over most of this effort, since I am somewhat inept when it comes to cloth of any sort.  If I see a loose thread, I'll pull it.  If it can be torn, I'll tear it (not on purpose).  I'm told it's a genetic guy thing.  Anyway, she scaled the swan silhouette to almost 24" in diameter.  She then tiled the pages so that the printer would print the whole thing out on our regular 8 1/2 x 11 sheets of paper.  After taping all the sheets together, she folded the fabric face to face and pinned it to the outline.  This way we would have mirror images, and we could put them directly opposite of one another on the sail, reducing shadows from having the logo offset.  After all, who really cares if it is looking in the same direction on both sides?  Personally, I like it like that.  

Here is Lisa cutting the swan out.  I'm nervous.  this stuff ain't cheap, and it's a little tough to work with.

Mostly done, but the hardest parts are yet to come.

The finished product.  This isn't the greatest background, but once this gets glued onto the Egyptian Cotton sailcloth, it's gonna look great.