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Wrap This! Rocks the Boat With Bass Pro Shops Watercraft Graphics

Installers apply 16 boat wraps — plus a truck wrap — in 12 days

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Damon Coppola is co-owner of Media1 Signs/Wrap This Ink (Longwood, FL).

During the first quarter of every year, when Old Man Winter keeps even hardcore boating and fishing enthusiasts out of the water, competitive-fishing teams become some of our biggest clients. The majority of such work serves ESPN’s Bassmaster Elite series. For years, we’ve been wrapping boats and hauling trucks for some of the world’s best, such as Kevin Van Dam, Terry Scroggins and Gerald Swindle, to name a few. These anglers are required to wrap their boats and trucks to provide branding for the teams’ sponsors, and we’re happy to oblige.

Bass Pro Shops is one of our top boat-wrap clients. We enjoy working with them; they appreciate the importance of eye-catching wraps!

Something fishy
Johnny Morris owns the company; he hatched the concept in 1972 in the back of Springfield, MO’s Brown Derby liquor store, which his father owned. From humble beginnings near Missouri’s Table Rock Lake, Morris’ selection of worms grew into Bass Pro Shops, currently the world’s largest tackle, camping and hunting supplier. It operates 52 retail stores and 21 boat shops. Johnny is very proud of his products, and his pride extends to the racing teams the company sponsors in competitive boat-racing and bass-fishing circuits (as well as the NASCAR stock-car circuit). Currently, they sponsor more than 300 competitive anglers worldwide.
We recently wrapped a set of boats at the company’s Branson, MO distribution center (contrary to popular belief, not all Branson businesses showcase aging entertainers).

The state-of-the-art facility spans 1.2 million sq. ft. (the equivalent of 50 city blocks). Truly impressive, it’s the nerve center for keeping up with worldwide demand for fishing, hunting and camping supplies. My contact there is Rick Emmitt; he started with the company as a salesman, and is now running Bass Pro Shops’ competitive-fishing operation.

We won the Bass Pro Shops account back in 2008. Emmitt dispatched David Jones, a liaison for the Nitro Bassmaster Elite team, to find the best available boat-wrap provider. We were one of two finalists; Emmitt chose us.

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In January, we were sent to Bass Pro Shops’ Springfield facility for an anticipated, two-week trip; we planned to depart on a Monday, finish our work and return 12 days later on a Friday. Our task: wrapping 16 boats and a hauling truck. We departed with an installation crew of Cris Cortes, Pete Dow and Caleb Perry. Flying out of Sanford, FL, however, our trip didn’t get off to a good start; flight delays stranded us at the airport for an entire morning, and we lost an entire day of production.

Knowing we were already behind schedule, we kicked our installation efforts into high gear. We were confident in our production crew’s abilities back in the shop. They produced the approximately 4,200 sq. ft. of graphics, which were printed on HP L25500 latex-ink printers with 3M’s Controltac™ with IJ180-10C v3 air-egress media. The shop had laminated the film with 3M Scotchcal 8518 high-gloss laminate, so having the material fully prepared gave us a good head start.

Luckily, we’d hired Ed Meese and his crew at Tracker Marine. Every year, they help us disassemble boats to prepare for the wraps. This involved disassembling rub rails, removing trolling motors and dislodging any other potential installation hazards.

One of the most important parts in wrapping any object is cleaning and prepwork. We always start
with a simple wipedown. Then, we remove residue with RapidPrep wax and grease remover, Then we continue with an alcohol bath (we apply standard isopropyl at least once, preferably twice, before actual vinyl installation). And then you go over the product one more time with a lint-free glove, making sure no little lint balls remain on the vessel itself.

The Media1 crew found a little time for fun; after we’d wrapped eight boats on Saturday, we snuck away to Table Rock Lake and fished with Emmitt and Lance Williams, Nitro Boats’ product engineer. We enjoyed our ride on a Nitro Z9, the model boat we were wrapping. Traveling 70 mph on a chilly, rainy day, we didn’t stay out long, but we managed to catch a few fish.

Everything in place
The Nitro boats certainly presented installation challenges. They contain some of the deepest body lines of any freshwater vessels we wrap. To negotiate these complex surfaces, we use 3M Roller L applicators, and we smooth the vinyl into place with Milwaukee Tool heat guns. Because you can’t regulate the heat as easily on torches, I think they’re a little too risky to use on this type of job. The Roller L allows us, with high heat, to roll some body lines that are almost 1.5 in. deep. 3M’s air-egress products work very well with these deep body lines, and the glossy-finish topcoat adds extra pop on a sunny day in the water.

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The Nitro’s back end also requires great care. We utilize one full vinyl sheet on an entire side, and try
to eliminate any seams besides the front and the transom. Dow, a longtime installer for us, can vouch for this; he had to complete 32 backside wraps for 16 vessels, and each of them were flawless. The curves on a Nitro bass boat’s central console will also put your installation methods to the test. However, Cortes wrapped 27 boats (some with more than one console) without incident. There’s no substitute for the right materials, the right tools and the right training.

Wrapping a boat provides many benefits; in addition to providing branding in a high-traffic environment, a wrap also protects a vessel’s factory-applied gelcoat. Four guys wrapping 16 boats and a truck in 12 days set a new Wrap This record. And, it created one very happy customer.
 

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