Getting Re-acquainted with an Old Friend

Subtitle: It takes a Village or how some old I-14 buddies got me sewing again.

I've spent six years out of my various careers working professionally as a sailmaker; several more years making dinghy sails part-time under my own label. I have owned an industrial sewing machine for many years, currently it is a Consew (having started with a Singer 107) which resides in the basement. About six years ago the original electric motor for the Consew stopped working and Paul Weiss, an old I-14 buddy sourced a replacement from E-bay and helped me install it. Unfortunately the original V-drive belt was now too large and the sewing machine sat gathering dust and aggravating my wife for several more years until Bob Ames, another I-14 buddy, decided to help me size the correct belt. So a week and half ago, with new electric motor and new V-drive belt, after an absence of many years, I sat down and got re-acquainted with an old friend . Compared to some of the incredible seamstresses I have worked with, I consider my sewing skills somewhat mediocre but passable. Bob Ames had an ulterior motive in finding the right belt; he had a cover that needed restitching... and that is what I did.

The blogmeister, his sewing machine, and Bob's cover.

Sitting behind the Consew got me thinking about all the sailmaking concerns that have gone out business since the 1970's and 1980's and wondering if there is anyone out there collecting sail logos of all the companies now gone. Picking through the cobwebs of my memory of just the Annapolis sailmakers no longer around would include, Hurricane Sails, Horizon Sails, Haarstick Sails, Sobstad Sails, Shore Sails, Scott Allan Sails... and I'm sure I'm forgetting several more.

My part-time sailmaking concern was named Severn Sails and I mostly made International Canoe sails, having some success with them in the early 1980's. I'm sure all of those sails are long gone but I still own some sails that sport this very rare logo.

The Severn Sails logo featured a stylized Route 50 bridge as it crosses the Severn River, framing a main/jib. The exit to Annapolis is just on the south end of the Route 50 bridge.

Sketch of a Sandbagger

This is a sketch of one of the large sandbaggers, used in an ad for Geo. W. Carpenter, Sailmaker, appearing in an 1894 issue of Forest and Stream.

From the Earwigoagin archives; my experience with sandbagger sailing.

Sail Cloth for Small Sailboats

Last winter the open sailing canoe guys (well mostly one gal, Marilyn Vogel) asked me to jot down some thoughts on sailcloth for sailing canoes for their newsletter (in my varied professional career, I have been a sailmaker - though not at the present time). The main issue I was asked about for the open canoe class was their rules referenced a now defunct sail cloth (hence the section on Bainbridge cloth). Though most of the small boat sailors out in the bloggosphere sail one-design boats where they don't worry about the type of sailcloth they are putting up the mast (alert, alert, technical data to follow, ignore if you don't care), there may be a few out there who have some interest in options for small boat sails.

Back when they did it right

Sailmakers today have hydraulically pressed rings, big honking Cordes sewing machines, synthetic ropes, hot knives, seamstick, mylar laminates. Let's hearken back to when everything was hand sewn.......

"Supposedly if you get any blood on the sail. You get a tot of rum (from the sailmaker)"

Sailmaking; String Sails, Doyle New Zealand

North 3DL technology is the name identified with molded sails using precisely laid fiber orientation. Unfortunately they haven't put anything up on YouTube. So we have a YouTube of Doyle Sails NZ competing technology, Statis 002, making "string sails". In a warehouse huge gantries lay down high modulus fiber and a massive infared computer contolled heating platen activates the glue and melts mylar sheets. String sails don't apply much to the dinghy sailor who is still using woven Dacron, but fascinating nevertheless.

There is nothing to be seen of the traditional sailmaker with the palm and thread. I like the high five the two workers give to each other at 1:55 into the video after the huge heating contraption finishes a run without setting the place on fire.