“I came from working in very large lofts around the world and that wasn’t what I wanted to do,” said Sean Rankins, the loft’s owner and chief sailmaker. “I like making a broad scope of sails, from very traditional canvas or cotton sails with hand-sewn hemp bolt ropes and grommets, to high-tech modern cloths and everything in between. Not doing a lot of the same work all the time keeps it interesting.”
When I visited, I got a firsthand glimpse at the historic side of sail making. The loft was working on the square sails for the brig Lady Washington, which required making soft cringles in the bolt ropes that can be used as reef points. In addition, dozens of grommets from seine twine had to be tightened on a wooden fid before they could be sewn into the fabric at precisely determined locations. In this quiet atmosphere the soundtrack consisted of the rustle of heavy sail cloth and the voices of the sailmakers who strictly used age-old hand tools like needle, palm, serving mallet and the hole punch, which punctuated the silence off and on in startling fashion.
Lady Washington, built and operated by the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport in Aberdeen, Washington, is a 1989 replica of the first American vessel to make landfall on the West Coast in 1788. Later, it became the first American ship to visit Honolulu, Hong Kong and Japan.
“Traditional sail making is labor intensive, and there are only a handful of lofts that still do it,” said Jamie Trost, port captain of the Historical Seaport. “There’s a lot of skill and knowledge involved, but it is difficult to understand the engineering of synthetic materials that are made to look old. We intentionally chose a heavier cloth that adds three to five years to the sails’ life.” New sails, according to Trost, should last about 10 years or 70,000 nautical miles.
The material of choice for Lady Washington is Oceanus, a modern warp-oriented polyester fabric with a soft hand that is available in cloth weights between 7 and 16 ounces per square foot. It features the color and texture of traditional cotton cloth, which makes Oceanus especially popular with traditional vessels. It was developed by North Sails with the help of Nat Wilson, a traditional sailmaker from East Boothbay, Maine.
Part of the routine maintenance schedule for those heavily used square-rigger sails is restitching them after a few years, because twine deteriorates faster than cloth. “It’s not the sailing that wears them down the most, but sunlight,” Trost said.
Emma Gunn sews a twine grommet. Photo by Dieter Loibner
Stitching a grommet requires a steady hand Photo by Dieter Loibner.
It is worth noting that every bid Rankins sends out includes an invitation to the client to come and help make the sails, an offer that Trost and several of his crew gladly accepted. Teaching and sharing knowledge is part of the ethos at NW Sails and Canvas, which is why Rankins has held workshops and taught sail making and rigging to students of the boat school, in addition to building sails for his clients. One of his students was Emma Gunn, who did well and showed interest in learning more of the craft, so Rankins offered an apprenticeship, which turned into a part-time job at the loft, an arrangement that works well for both parties.
“I like sailing,” Gunn declared with a smile. Growing up in Port Townsend, she was one of the “pollywogs” who took to boats early and stuck with it, first sailing small dinghies, later as a sailing instructor, a deckhand and delivery crew. She’s now studying for the USCG 100-ton master’s license. Gunn is gone often, but “plugs in” whenever she’s around and the loft needs help. Working here, she said, is a continuous learning experience, but with practical value. “There’s no AAA to call on the ocean, so I try to fix it myself, not just for thrift, but to keep stuff out of the landfill by extending the useful service life of a sail.”
The longest-tenured member of the NW Sails and Canvas crew is Holly Kays, who started working for Rankins in 2003. “Sean wanted the
The Report • June 2021 • Issue 96 | 111
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