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Sail loftGraham Bantock - designer & sail maker
All sailmaking and most of the design work is done
by Graham and these make up the larger part of his work. He actually
spends a good deal of time on other tasks such as putting rigs together,
preparing orders of mast materials, quality control, packing, dealing
with technical enquiries and generally keeping an eye on the business.
Graham is a graduate of Southampton University's naval architecture course and worked with Lloyd's Register of Shipping for three years before launching SAILSetc on a full time basis. Actively involved in the competition side of radio sailing at all levels he is also an RYA National Judge. He has managed to disengage himself from other administrative roles but remains interested in furthering higher standards of administration in all aspects of the sport. Sail loft
This section of the business runs in an area circa
4 metres x 4 metres - not much bigger than when it started in a spare
bedroom in 1978! Storage of cloth is incorporated into the sail
making bench which has a heat resistant top for cutting materials using
one of a variety of hot knives. Under the bench are stored dozens of
sets of templates for sail panels.
The hand driven sewing machine is built into another bench and a third bench, under which Mylar film and card tubes for packaging are stored, is where the sails are rolled up prior to packing.
Design
The design tools are run on both a Mac and on a powerful PC.
We use Maxsurf for 3D surface design, Hydromax for stability calculation, WinDesign
for VPP analysis, and a host of in-house spreadsheet based software, as well
as traditional paper, pencil and calculator. Not so much space is needed for
the design work as for well-ordered storage of records, plans, calculations,
and other data.
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Mail order | Sail loft | Metal shop | Moulding shop ©2002-2008 SAILSetc |
Next door to the sail making area is a small area
used for design work. This will now be a little larger thanks to the
office and mail order departments moving sideways into the new extension.