Maine Sailing Partners

Sailmakers wanted

MSP is looking for help.  We have opening for full- or part-time sailmakers.  Here at MSP employees work at all aspects of sail manufacture and repair.  We offer competitive wages, a pleasant work environment, flexible work hours once you're up to speed and generous health, vacation and IRA benefits. If you'd like to apply, send us a resume and put "Sailmaker"in the subject line.

Update:  We've now filled our openings.  Thanks all who responded.

On the floor

Here's a few of the sails passing over the table recently

MSP Parking

This is the Maine Sailing Partners parking lot in the valley between the front door and a growing mountain of snow.  Anyone need crew in Key West or Miami?

noble experiment

Well, it's official.  The Freeport Project Review Board just approved our plans for a new home on Noble Drive in Freeport.  Here's the front elevation sketch.  Perhaps not a s beautiful as we'd like, but handsome is as handsome does. 

Noble Experiment

With a little luck we'll be building sails in this field next year.

Soul of a New Machine

Back in January, we made the decision to purchase a new sewing machine.  Our heavy duty Adler 166, which we use for the heaviest of sewing tasks is showing its age.  It has had a couple of breakdowns in the past year and we have found it hard or impossible to find replacement parts forcing us to improvise.

Since there are certain jobs only this machine could do for us, the prospect of losing use of it for any length of time during our busy season was a vulnerability for us.  We decided we needed a backup.

After some research, a little negotiation, and an interminable wait, a large crate arrived on our loading dock today.  We attacked the crate with hammers and screwdrivers, and wrestled the contents into the prepared table cut-out.

The new machine, a Solent 366-76 HA, is the descendant of the the Adler, with the same heavy duty sewing ability, but with three times the horizontal and  twice the vertical underarm clearance.  There are also quite a few extra bells and whistles - needle positioner, pneumatic foot and puller lifts, push-button bar tacker, 1, 2, and 3 step zigzag stitch cams, etc., etc.  These are details only a sailmaker will appreciate, but it is going to make it a lot easier for us to deal with big sails (we hope).

MSP after hours

Waiting for those sailmaker elves to sneak in and finish the sails...

Up and running

Well, it took longer than we'd hoped, and we had to trudge through many more glitches than we could have conceived possible, but we're now up and running in our new space.

On the floor (I guess technically it's 'on the table') are a Jeanneau 47 asymmetrical, a Paine 43 carbon genoa, a Colgate 26 spinnaker, a Herreshoff Bounty genoa, and a C&C 38 triradial mainsail.  Runnin' indeed.

On the Road

Moving days are on in earnest, and the most earnest of our equipment is our big Ontarian Sewing Machine.

This machine weighs about 800 lbs and just getting it out of the pit where it has resided for almost 14 years was quite a challenge.

Here Ken and Win set up tackle to lift the 8 foot monster.  But it will take more than the two of us to get it up...

sneak peak 2

Since we can't put sewing machines in the floor of our new space, we have to bring the floor up to them.  Here's a shot of our new sewing floor - a giant table, assembled by carpenter Al and his team, measuring 40 feet by 52 feet with cut outs for the sewing machines.  This table is bigger than our present open space, but less than 1/3 of the total area of  new loft...

Sneak Preview

Here's a quick look at MSP's new space.  It's about 55% bigger than our present space, and a lot more open.  As you can see, the carpenters are in and working to get the space ready for our move...

In a Row

As moving day approaches we're trying to get all our ducks in a row for a smooth transition.  But not quite this literally.  Rob caught this shot of a pair of mallards roosting under the MSP van yesterday.  Fortunately they had moved on by this morning...

New Sailor

MSP's Rob Haile and wife Amy Nadzo Haile are the proud parents of a new son, Henry Haile, born Ground Hog Day at Portland's Mercy Hospital.   Henry made his first visit to the loft today.  Welcome Henry.

Moving Daze

MSP is moving.

During our nearly 23 years in the business we've had only two homes.  Our first, as you may remember from historical notes, was on Commercial Street in Portland and our second, since December of 1987, has been here at Lower Falls Landing in Yarmouth.

Much as we've enjoyed our stay here on the Royal River waterfront, we have been straining at the seams for a few years now, and our loft space here, interrupted with posts and full of nooks and crannies, is less than ideally suited to sailmaking, especially to the occasional larger projects.  So, when our neighbor across the hall, Maine Cottage, decided that they needed more display space, we took it as an opportunity to find more space ourselves.

We are now poised to sign a lease on a large space here in Yarmouth.  This will give us some much needed elbow room, but probably will not be our final stop.  We hope in the next couple of years to build a space that is truly our own.

More on our move coming up.  Anybody recommend a good local Feng Shui consultant?

Ice

Nothing says winter like ice on the river.  Driving to work this morning the dashboard thermometer hit -4 degrees f.,  and the view across the Royal River estuary was solid.

Speed of business

No, we don't yet have a contract to build sails for UPS, but with the price of fuel what it is, who knows what the future may hold...

Foiled!

When he wasn't busy working on his mad mandolin skills, chasing bats out of his house on Peaks Island, playing the cello, commuting by bicycle, or practicing with his high school soccer team, Maine Sailling Partners summer employee Charley Friedman was working on his hydrofoil sailboard.  Charley recently emailed me some pictures:
"I haven't had proper conditions for a true sail test of the foil-board.  However, numerous towing test have produced encouraging results.  At 15mph with a 25' rope the board had no trouble leaving the water.  Most trials ended with severe foil cavitation where the board would begin to shake.  This problem is due to being towed behind a motorboat.  The propeller of the motor boat creates a path of turbulent water that causes the hydrofoil to not work as well.  My plans are to secure the foil more stiffly to the board and experiment under sail.  Since the foil seems to work fine when tested behind a boat, except for the cavitation problem, I also plan on trying the hydrofoil with a different board."

The Week of Small Boats

This was the week for small boat sails:

5 Cape Cod Frosty sails for Sail Maine
12 suits of Flying Junior sails for Bates College sailing team
A sprit main for an 11' pram (with reef)
A suit of sails for a 404 dinghy (no - not a 505)

Here are the Bates sails being stacked and packed:

Low Downeast

In addition to the natural beauty of Maine, a sail delivery trip can also reveal some of Maine's man made treasures:

The lobster buoy rendition of old glory.

The snow machine graveyard.

The Sly Cat.  I'm not really sure what this is - joke, art installation, or the creation of a madman, but it certainly is unique...

Press

The June issue of Maine Boats and Harbors magazine has a flattering profile of two Maine saillofts - Nat Wilson Sailmakers (sorry, no web site) and MSP.  The profile is part of the magazine's 'Small by Design' series, written by contributing editor Peter Bass.

Nat Wilson, hand sewing a bolt-rope in this picture, is famous for building historically accurate sails for sailing ships and charter schooners, including sails for the Old Ironsides.

MSP is included mostly by virtue of our being next door neighbors to Maine Cottage furniture, Peter Bass's day job. We'll take the publicity any way it comes...

Migratory Visitor

The Arctic Tern is said to have the longest of migrations, flying some 20,000 miles per year round trip, from Arctic to Antarctic and back.  This week, another long distance flier with 46,000 miles traveled in her first two years of life, stopped in to have some wing feathers looked after.

Pelagic Australis is on her way from her Southern summer of traveling among Tierra Del Fuego, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula to her Northern summer in Greenland and the high latitudes.  Those of you with some leisure time and a hankering to visit some very wild parts of this planet might want to hitch a ride with her some day...

Downeast

A great pleasure of sailmaking in Maine is spring delivery of sails.  One gets great glimpses of this beautiful coast. 

And one gets to see the fanatically dedicated boatbuilders of Maine at work on their art.  Here, the craftsmen at Brooklin Boatyard are fitting the toe rail to the 76' Goshawk.

Here designer Bob Stephens keeps a watchful eye on his baby,  two years in gestation.

What's Wrong With This Picture

So, in an earlier post, we showed this picture of Patience fitting the battens to a Turnabout sail.

Though you might never guess it from our gimlet eyes and rock hard abs, we do occasionally falter.  A free MSP hat to the first reader who points out the flaw in this tableau.

[Update:  Milbarge wins - see comment below.  And to those readers who e-mailed, thanks for the input, but please use the comments feature in the future, and he beat you anyway...]

Five Feet High and Rising

Our loft is in Lower Falls Landing, a former sardine cannery on the Royal River in Yarmouth, Maine.  The picture to the left is the Royal River in flood.  Southern Maine received nearly four inches of rain over the weekend . . . on top of two inches earlier in the week plus snow melt, and this is what we get.  The shed at left is part of Yarmouth Boat Yard, just up river from us.  The shed doors don't normally open directly onto the water.  If you look under the highway bridge at center, you can see the Lower Falls.  The Ontarian pit looks a little damp this morning, but there's no standing water yet.  I'll keep you posted.  "How high's the water papa?  Five feet high and rising."

Sparrow

We arrived today to find an expired sparrow in the loft.  No idea how it managed to get in but it was probably slipped in through an open back door on Saturday and escaped the crew's notice before they left for the day.

Tanbark

Every once in a while one of our customers orders a sail in tanbark.  Back in the days of cottons sails, some sailcloth was tanned - dipped in tannins, usually derived from tree bark.  The process was used to protect the sails from rot, mold and mildew.  Nowadays, Dacron is dyed a reddish brown to simulate the 'red sails in the sunset' look.  Sail buyers pay a premium for this or any dyed Dacron.  There is no analogous protection provided by the dye.

Here Jake finishes a small dinghy made from Contender tanbark. Jake is a veteran sailmaker with over 30 years experience now in semi retirement.  We are lucky to get him when we can.   

Sign of Spring

Sam opens a second tube containing hundreds of feet of pultruded fiberglass batten stock, to fill the pockets of this year's crop of new sails and replace lost or broken or missing battens of older models.  These come by truck, so it behooves us to order a lot at a time.  We try to get about a year's supply.

Endless Winter

One of our current projects is an Ultrabond laminated, Pentex 155% racing genoa for a loft in Virginia.  When a sail is sewn together, the thread tension creates minute wrinkles in the seams.  The Dacron thread used in sail making can also be stretchier than the surrounding sailcloth.  Ultrabond is Dimension Polyant's proprietary hot glue system.  Ultrabond laminated seams are very smooth and very low stretch, all desirable attributes in a racing sail.

After we glue this sail together, we will ship it to our Virginia customer for finishing.  They hope to be sailing with this sail by the end of next week.  I wish that the same could be said for us here.  This is the view out the back door of the loft this morning:

And here's today's local weather almanac:

We might be sailing by July.

Part time help

We're having trouble hiring new sailmakers, but we've got good canine help up front.  In today, Rob's sister's golden Mackenzie...