Ship Shape

“IT’S KIND OF a funny story,” says Cathy Bacot, owner of Wraps for Less (Orlando, FL), of the circumstances that brought Captain Mark Gibson of Nauti Diver Charters in Port Orange, FL, to her shop. His logo originally featured an anchor and a woman posed in a provocative way — hence the name “Nauti” Diver. One weekend, he took a family with kids out on a charter and the mother expressed her displeasure with the logo, that it was disrespectful to women. “So, he asked us what we could do to make it more ‘family friendly,’” Cathy recalls. “Our graphic designer changed the woman’s legs into a mermaid fin and her skimpy bikini top into sea shells, which changed the entire feel of the logo.”

Thus began a multi-year relationship between Cathy and Capt. Mark, who is also a frequent guest on Saturday morning live broadcasts of “Catch a Memory Outdoors,” a radio show for east-central Florida. Recently, he wanted his boat wrapped so it would stand out among his competitors. He offered a deal to let Wraps for Less include their logo in the wrap, to which Cathy agreed. Her designer then used Adobe Photoshop to lay out the Nauti and shop logos, and sent him the proof.

Capt. Mark’s response was, “’Oh no, you need to make your logo way bigger!’” as Cathy quotes him. “So, we ended up taking up the whole side of the boat with our logo,” she says. The arrangement provided the shop with so much publicity that a few months later they wrapped the captain’s truck to match the boat for free. “Also,” she adds, “because he’s a nice guy.”

This wrap involved no great fish story. The biggest challenge probably was the art design, making the lines on the side wrap around and match up with the back, Cathy says. Once the combination marlin graphic and company logo were safely ‘in the net,’ Wraps for Less used their HP Latex printer to image the wrap on Arlon SLX and SLX+ Cast Wrap with Arlon Series 3200 Optically Clear overlaminate — which they almost exclusively spec for boat wraps.

“Our installation team works together on our wraps,” Cathy says. This particular wrap took a full day using 2-3 installers from start to finish. “Boat wraps go fairly quickly and the prep is often the most time-consuming part of the wrap,” she points out. Some other boat wraps, which cover the entire painted surface of the inside as well as the hull, are more tedious and time consuming.

When Wraps for Less wrapped Capt. Mark’s truck, they wanted it to match the boat but not look too busy, so they did a partial. They flipped the marlin image for the truck so it faces the opposite way from the one on the boat, “which was more aesthetically pleasing than having them look like exact copies,” Cathy says.

But our story doesn’t end there — not quite. About two weeks after Wraps for Less delivered the completed wrap, Capt. Mark called and said, “Guess what…?” And Cathy knew something had happened. “He accidentally scraped the side of the boat along the side of the dock he was pulling up to and completely tore up the wrap,” she says “We rewrapped it for him and it’s been great since.”