More Brands-more sailmakers
The Philip Rhodes designed SCIMITAR sporting her traditional narrow panel new sails made by Col Anderson at Doyle Sail Victoria -Image Mark Chew
At SWS we love interaction with our readers. But we never can tell what’s going to cause a reaction. For example, last year we ran an odd little story about a strange topographical interpretation called The Spilhaus Projection. I thought a few people might find it amusing but how could we tell in would become our second most viewed article ever with over 5000 reads…and still counting.
This week we had a wonderfull response to our story on sailmaker’s branding… the ragged sew on patches that used to adorn every sail from an off beach dinghy to the grandest Ocean Racer. Like many things in the 21st Century, the range of sail suppliers has dwindled drastically over the last 50 years, perhaps due to technological advances and price pressure from customers. Nowadays in Australia there are only 3 or 4 major companies building sails and perhaps a dozen others struggling to compete. Much of the work is done overseas in Nevada, New Zealand, Sri Lanka…. and imported to be finished here… in inner city lofts. The craft of the local backyard sailmaker has almost disappeared. So these brands act as a reminder of a time when local was good, when small could be beautiful and one craftsperson with a sewing machine could dream of powering the boat of a champion.
Thanks to Mark Hunter from Vacuwash for these wonderful contributions…. and if you have a story or information help us build some history around them. (click to enlarge)
And to finish it off… here’s a brand supplied by one of the masters of traditional sailmaking in Australia. Those in Melbourne know Col Anderson and his son Blake as the faces of Doyle but seeing him execute his craft, hand stitching the clews into the giant new mainsail for his beloved ACROSPIRE III then you can understand why he needs his own brand!
I questioned what the Lion was about… “They asked me if I wanted something other than the name…”. I said “Yup…What have you got?” They said “We’ve got a lion” ….“OK that’ll do.”
Acrospire III- Image www.markchew.com.au