When I was 13 we moved to Annapolis to the Chesapeake Bay… which featured a beach, a dock and many boats – such as Laser’s, Finn’s, Int’l 14s. Scott Steele (silver medal Windglider in LA ´84) and I were teammates on the Annapolis Yacht Club Junior program, and in the Windsurfer & Laser classes… I finished 6th at the 1997 Laser World’s. I also taught racing during the summers at the Severn Sailing Association. Scott and I were collegiate All-Americans in 1979 and I was on the USA Olympic Team – Finn – in a non-consequential year in 1981. I was an active crew in the International 14, Soling, Star and various keelboats.
My father and I saw the Windsurfer at the 1975 Annapolis Boat Show, at that time I was racing Lasers and was fascinated by the Windsurfers simplicity and speed. I bought my first Windsurfer from Ken Winner (also an Annapolitan), which compromised of a few broken masts stuck together, teak boom parts glassed together and a leaky, multi-repaired board that broke when sailing over a local oyster boat wake.
I worked at various yacht lofts in Annapolis and San Francisco – reading design sheets lofting genoas and mainsails. When I worked at Pineapple Sails (Richards and Van Heeckeren Berkeley Ca.) Kame Richards was my design mentor. I built early mylar sails for windsurfers based in the San Francisco Bay area, which essentially started my design career.
As a sail cutter/builder I worked for Ulmer, Hood, and Haarstick in Annapolis. In San Francisco I worked for North, Richards and Van Heeckeren, Pacific Surfsails and Horizon. As a windsurfing sail designer I “moonlighted” at Richards and Van Heeckeren, then I worked as a designer/builder of custom sails at the Island Windsurfing in Newport Rhode Island. Sails from Island were what landed me a position at Pryde. For four years the O.E.M. and Pryde line work was fantastic – as at that time windsurfing was exploding! Masts were produced at various fishing rod factories and we began to measure mast flex and learned about sail tuning for different masts with the aim of improving performance. Neil [Pryde] and I have always been on good terms… I left Pryde with an agreement to purchase the Garda loft and went into negotiations with Gaastra (now GA Sails), F2 and North.
Things moved forwards with North and I worked several weeks at North building protos at the Garda North loft. The result was the birth of Advanced Rig Technology (ART) where I designed for 10 years and developed Robert Stroj as a designer. The ART days were the best – yielding three World Speed records, a huge, powerful World Cup team, a heavy travel schedule and the feeling that windsurfing was the buzz word worldwide.
The Loft started in 1999… after departing ART in ’96 I worked for two years on a rehab project in the old town of Tarifa… as this project was concluding I built a custom raceboard design that went on to win the World’s in 1998 – this experience was in large what shifted my focus from rehab back to sail design.
I work in a loft, so I called my workplace “The Loft”, and when thinking about a name it was easy. It’s also partly a feeling – windsurfing hooked in- la glisse… in a way a lift as we fly when hooked in sailing, which in a sense is “lofted”.
I followed the wind… from Annapolis, to San Francisco, to Newport, to Hong Kong, to Lake Garda, eventually to Tarifa. Tarifa has loads of wind and huge spaces – it’s a lovely place to call home.
Additional parts of the design puzzle include: weight & waste saving, and improving the graphic appearance of the sail.
My design technique used a 2D design program for protos and series sails, which are produced at our series loft in China. For custom sails built in Tarifa, I design with the same 2D program, then take the numbers to the table for lofting. In short – finding curves that animate rigs.
My work changed from A4 & pencil to a 2D program in 2009. I often explore curves in real scale on my loft table before sending them electronically to China, and before building custom sails in my loft. In my view using both ways is better than working exclusively with one or the other.
It’s all about testing. There is a difference between race development and non-race development. Slalom & foil race designs have influx from the riders involved with development… in other words, each rider has their technique & preferences that affect design development. For non-race designs I rely on my testing with local riders and my eldest son, Luca.
Rig performance is the result of the balance between the rigs lift & drag. When the board is in the water the rig might be best like a 4×4 – so generating more lift (needed to slide the board over the water and make a wake) at the expense of higher drag. In contrast, when the board is lifted [foiling] from the water, an efficient rig (with less power, but proportionally, & more importantly, a larger decrease in drag) appears more appropriate.
ET asked me to design Attitude sails back in 2013, we enjoyed working together, ET ending up as Loftsails commercial partner.
Foiling has extended my time on the water! I love the smooth ride for my old bones… I’ve also become very wind specific – so 10 knots is ideal! When life is “normal” and winds are favourable, I probably average around 3 sessions per week for Loftsails freeride, foil & slalom testing.
Loftsails is popular enough to sustain itself in this present day with a difficult current windsurf marketplace and I’m still happy with the structure of the company overall. In terms of ambitions, continuing Loftsails’ product quality. Loftsails is the major player in the Raceboard arena, and I work to establish similar positions for Loftsails foil and slalom race designs.
Most satisfying aspects of being a sail designer?
When windsurfers enjoy their windsurfing. And kids… watching fleets of young, motivated wind enthusiasts with the determination to improve.
Do you consider yourself an artist?
Qualified yes… in a very particular medium, with many numeric parameters ????
What is your ‘Wind Vision’ philosophy?
Our Wind Vision mantra is the excitement felt when seeing/hearing the wind sing- especially in anticipation of a session. For me, Wind Vision is also perception of the rig-wind encounter.
Outside of windsurfing what are your other interests?
Was it cool to see your children get into windsurfing?
YES! ???? My three sons windsurf, surf, sail, wind & wing-foil.
Where do you see yourself in ten years time?
Sailing.
Words to live by?
Follow your passion and tread lightly.
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