AM27, AM29, JE29 and Changmai History

The long and short of it!

Much has been written on the internet about the saga of my designs and the boats made both under license and in violation of the license agreement at a factory run by Mr. Lu (Lv) near Dalian, China on Chungxing Dao. Mr. Lu now types his name as "Lv". I know you type "lv" on most Chinese typing programs to get the actual Chinese caractor for his name but English speakers may find it more easy to use "Lu" since his name sounds similar to this.

This is my attempt the tell the whole story and warn those that are thinking about doing business with Mr. Lu.

I will start out by saying that I, Mark Kettering, am the designer of all of these boats. Mr. Lu or his father, Mr. Lu senior is the owner of a factory on Chungxing Island that was licensed to build the AM27 for sale and use only in China. This factory also built 3 AM29s under contact but was never licensed to build more. But that has not stopped them from doing so in violation of my ownership of the copyright to my designs.

Currently, any new 27 or 29 offered for sale should be considered an illegal "copy product". If you buy an illegal "copy product" it can be subject to confiscation and destruction due to international copyright agreements. The more advanced AM30e is the replacement.

Much of this was originally posted to various news groups including here. Below is the same basic text but edited and updated:

Maybe I can give the group some information on the "Changmai 27". First off I am the designer and it is not a copy of any boat but a totally new design inspired by not only the Farrier designs made by Corsair (or the newer Corsairs not designed by Farrier) but also by the many other designs from many different designers and manufactures. Not one line or dimension that I know of is the same as on a Farrier design but F27 or F28 sails will fit with slight modification. Not even the basic proportions are the same as the F27. You can stand up in the "Changmai 27". The folding method is also a bit different and there are no "water" struts for support. In fact the folding struts are only used for folding and could be removed when sailing if you wanted.

The background on this project is kind of a long story but I will give a quick overview here. In 2000 or 2001 I approached Mr. Lu senior to build my design in his factory on Changxing Island, Dalian, China. I made an agreement with him, built the molds in the USA and shipped them to his factory in China. I also shipped hardware and some other supplies for 3 boats (two for me in the USA and one to keep in China) to the factory. My engineer and I went there in turn to help start production and one boat was built. When we got to the factory Mr. Lu senior had retired and placed his son, Mr. Lu junior in charge. My engineer and I were each there for one month since
that was the limit of our visas at the time and the first boat was well on its way, but not finished, when we left. This boat was then
shipped to the USA and there were many problems. We then went back to China but for a longer time to work on the second boat. When we got there we saw that Mr. Lu had made 10 boats, all of them even worse than the first. He had decided that the foam core that we specified was too expensive so he substituted low cost very low quality core. Of course this made all of these 10 boats unacceptable. We also found out that he copied the hardware we had sent him to use on the boats he was to build for us. I expressed my dismay and I insisted that he use the supplied authentic hardware. He even was trying to make copies of the Andersen winches I had shipped to him. He told us that the 10 boats would be for use only in China and that this is acceptable in China. Since we had already shipped him the hardware we continued to make a second boat under our supervision. This boat is much better than the first and was shipped to the USA last summer. Still there have been many problems with this boat including problems with the anodizing and acrylic windows and companionway boards. Some of the hardware on this boat is also the copy hardware and not the hardware I had shipped him.

But for me the biggest problem was that Mr. Lu junior then tired to sell the boats outside of China. His agreement with me is that he is
not to sell boats made to my design except to me or for use in China and then only with my inspection and approval. The boats he is
trying to sell are the 10 boats made with the wrong core material and are not approved. He thinks that by just changing the name to "Changmai 27" makes it so that he can just sell boats built to my design. The kayak on his web page is also of my design and he is also not to be offering this for sale. I also understand that he just copied text from the Corsair web page to use on his own web page. Due to this and other reasons I have now suspended my cooperation with Mr. Lu. I hope in the future he decides to respect design ownership and copy rights.

About the same time the above was originally written I contracted with another factory to build a slightly longer and updated version that was to be called the AeroMomentum 29. My European distributor presold 3 boats of the new design with contracted delivery dates against my insistance. I then shipped plugs and materials for the 29 to the new factory in China but when I arrived they were stuck in customs. The new factory did not have the proper paperwork to import these items and this would take 90 days to get it. Due to the delay in customs and the insistance of the European distrbutor I reluctantly agreeded three 29s could be made with my help at Mr. Lu's factory. This was a huge mistake but was done to help the European distrbutor meet his customer contract deadlines.

After a major fist fight between Mr. Lu and an old watchman at the other factory the work started at Lu's factory.

Well, one 29 was built under my watch but not to my requirments! Mr. Lu would not follow any process or design requirments since he was thinking the European distrbutor was the customer and not me. In the end Mr. Lu wasted a fair amount of materials with mistakes but his workers did learn to do vacuum infusion after I deminstrated a few parts. The first boat was delivered but with many known problems and defects due to the need to meet the delivery deadline with the European distrbutor's customer. At that point the European distrbutor had license to build 2 more boats but I was excused from helping so I left.

In the end, Mr. Lu owed the European distrbutor for promissed repairs to the 2 boats he delivered to the European distrbutor but has never paid. He kept the materials for the 3ed boat and used these now stolen materials on another now unlicensed copy boat sold to Europe. He also took delivery of materials for sails and other things for "use in boats to be sold in China" that he never paid for. So if you plan on buying a boat or have bought a boat from Mr. Lu you not only have an illegal copy boat but there is a good chance it is made with stolen materials!

Mr. Lu currently is activly marketing the boats of my design unlicensed and illegally. At times he contracts with a new distributor only to provide them with much less than he promisses. I am sure you know that copy products are a way of life in China but in the west these boats are illegal and can be confiscated and destroyed. I advise you not to risk buying these illegal copy boats.

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