TOM TRIPP

TOM TRIPP

A gigantic sailboat bearing huge heads of John McCain and Barack Obama on the mainsail drifted past the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show this weekend, treating thousands of visitors to a massive floating electoral mural as they walked the docks.

Depending on where they were standing, visitors to the largest boat show in the world were either treated to McCain (to starboard) or Obama (to port) as the boat cruised up the Intracoastal Waterway bordering the show. Their running mates and campaign slogans were on the jib.

Was the Vote Boat, as it's called, some gambit by the Obama campaign, spending off its millions raised on the Internet? Or was it a Republican National Committee trick? Well, no (promoting both candidates is generally not in the game plan for either side).

Instead, the boat was launched by PhotoSails, a company that specializes in imprinting imagery on boat sails. The Vote Boat has attracted attention from New York, where a blogger captured it on film (you can also see it on Flickr), to Fort Lauderdale, where its passage through a drawbridge Saturday stalled traffic near the boat show for miles and dropped jaws as the massive presidential heads floated past.

But for Photo Sails, the exposure had to be huge. The company offers its sail-printing technology for any size sail. Prices for printing run from about $37 per square foot for one sail, down to about $30 per square foot for two sails. A big square-rigged ship with more than 9 sails would get a 44 percent discount on the per-square-foot price.

The company has partnered with many companies, including Hunter Marine, to offer boats that can carry a company message or brand in several major waterside cities in the U.S. "This allows us create photo perfect and vibrant branding vehicles by utilizing the untapped waterways of every major marketplace in the world," according to the company website. The New York Vote Boat was sponsored by Long Island Yacht Sales, the regional Hunter sailboat dealer.

While viewers could only see one candidate or the other, at least they offered equal time.

-- Tom Tripp and Glen Justice