Walking on Water!

Should you happen to be in Alicante next year, soaking up the sun and the wine, you could be forgiven for thinking you’d taken a little too much of both if you should happen to see the Puma sponsored entrant of the Volvo Ocean Race in port or at sea. Looking for all the world like a giant Puma training shoe with sails, the Puma boat will be drawing disbelieving stares wherever she goes. Mark Godden reports Ocean racing is surrounded by all the glamour and sense of occasion that trails other top sporting endeavours, such as Formula One. It’s an expensive pursuit, driven by leading edge design and technology and pushed to the very limits of its ability. Formerly known as the Whitbread Round The World Race, the Volvo Ocean Race is acknowledged by those with both the will and courage to undertake it, as the ultimate sailing adventure. The race takes place every four years, with the route being changed to suit the various ports of call nominated along its way. Needless to say though, whatever route is taken, the race remains true to its founding principal; to pit man and today’s top racing technology against the worst that wind and weather can deal out. Extremes of temperature, waves which may measure thirty metres and the sheer strain that twenty eight thousand sea miles can exert, all go to make this great race one of sport’s ultimate challenges.

The Volvo Ocean Race is centred around racing technology and contested by leading edge ocean going yachts known as Volvo Open 70s. These highly evolved, purebred mono-hull racing yachts are about seventy feet long and capable of making over five hundred miles in a twenty-four hour day when they’re under way and racing. With such speed and distance being possible and with closely matched boats competing, The Race is an exciting spectacle, fought out in a hostile and challenging environment.

High profile events like the Volvo Ocean Race thrive on sponsorship and, as every sponsor would readily confirm, sponsors want their brands promoted in as conspicuous a fashion as possible. London based GBH Design’s response to leading sportswear manufacturer Puma’s invitation to brand its Volvo Open 70, certainly puts a tick in the “conspicuous” box.

GBH’s design for Puma effectively dresses the yacht in Puma’s sportswear. The huge sail suite is red and dominated by leaping puma motifs and Puma’s logo. The mono-hull’s flanks, its transom and its companion way hatch all get the GBH treatment too and wear a livery designed to make the hull look like a seventy foot long training shoe – a Puma training shoe, of course!

GBH Design’s work emphatically puts Puma’s brand on the map and is truly of celebrity calibre. Puma will not be found wanting for press and profile because the result is a head-turning yacht which, courtesy of its massive red impact and its undeniable novelty, will stand out even amongst the other colourful entrants of the Volvo Ocean Race.

Just a few years ago, a spectacle like the Puma boat would not have been practically or technically possible. But, like the Volvo Open 70 itself, imaging technologies have not stood still and designs as outrageous as GBH’s can now be printed and applied to more or less anything – ocean-racing yachts included. The job of printing and applying the Puma livery was given, on recommendation, to Southampton based Grapefruit Graphics, whose MD is Andy Yeomans, a lifelong and formerly professional ocean racing sailor himself.

Grapefruit Graphics is a small company with huge talent and capability. It produces general signing but its towering reputation has been won for the work it does on boats. No stranger to racing yachts, Andy and Grapefruit were understandably pleased to be awarded the Puma livery work.

To merely call the job a “wrap” would somewhat trivialise a work of technical excellence. The design itself presents a range of challenges, particularly the stitching, which runs close to details on the hull and must maintain a consistent distance off, despite the elongation demanded to fit the print to the hull. Grapefruit Graphics work in this and other respects is a masterpiece. Contrary to what the print suggests, the livery is entirely printed and entirely flat. The shadow and suggested dimensional detailing are, just that, suggested. Nothing is cut and applied.

The job arrived at Grapefruit Graphics in the form of five, three-gigabyte files from GBH; such is the level of detail present in the images. Andy Yeoman printed the livery on Metamark MD7, using Grapefruit’s Seiko ColourPainter. Metamark MD7 was specified for its elongation tolerant handing and its reputation for resolving very high resolution, both characteristic, being demanded by the Puma livery.

Working around its highest resolution, the printer and Metamark MD7 performed flawlessly, maintaining colour and density between rolls and panel ends. The oceans of the world are just about the most inhospitable places to be found and are no place for unprotected digital print. The output was thus laminated prior to application, using Metamark’s matching MG900 laminating film. This film is crystal-clear and does not shift the colour of the printed substrate.

Application of the printed and laminated livery made demands of both the material and the application team. The graphic had to fit the hull precisely and its detailing had to line up with the boat’s line on both its flanks and its transom. The laminated Metamark print was applied without pre-mask to the hull and, according to Andy, was not troubled by the extreme elongation needed to fit it over the swell of the hull. With the good density of ink delivered by the ColorPainter and the Metamark material’s appetite for it, there is no thinning of the colour in stressed areas either.

The Puma boat is a very visual statement of what today’s imaging and materials technologies makes possible and, in the skilled hands of Grapefruit Graphics, it has been used to create a very powerful advertisement for the Puma brand. has been created. The design is inventive and demands attention. Its application and execution is flawless. It will promote the Puma brand the world over and endure some of the worst conditions on the planet will no ill effect.

The result of Grapefruit Graphic’s work for GBH and its client, Puma could be said to speak for itself, but in reality they shout. Puma has its big brand statement and the Volvo Ocean Race has an entrant that’s an instant celebrity wherever it goes.

Top of page