rubber boot,’says Walsh. ‘And the reason is they know they’re going to get absolutely saturated. Because it’s a rubber boot, it’s easy – it dries out very, very quickly.’ However, the Dubarry solution and boot many sailors are now wearing is called the Crosshaven, which comes with an integral gaiter. ‘That boot came about as a result of Ian Walker and the guys on Green Dragon [in the 2008-09 Volvo Race] because when they were at the Galway stopover we had a sit-down with our design team and engineers and met all the guys. They had taken one of our boots and concocted a kind of homemade gaiter. So we probed on that idea and out of it the Crosshaven boot has evolved into the product we have today, with the integral gaiter that is so valued by sailors.’ Dubarry are the official supplier to both Team Brunel and SHK Scallywag in the latest Volvo Race.
www.dubarry.com
clothing manufacturers have really struggled to get right. Footwear used in this environment has to be a precise fit to do its job properly.’ These four ingredients have helped keep Dubarry at the top of their game, despite the number of clothing brands moving into this market. ‘If when you buy a jacket or a pair of trousers they're a little bit longer, a little bit short, a little bit loose, a little bit tight, you can get away with it some of the time,’ says Walsh. ‘With a pair of boots it needs to be absolutely spot on. So the whole issue of engineering is really important.’
Listening to the sailors No one knows better than a sailor what a sailor wants to wear, and some of Dubarry’s best innovations have come from the ocean-going professionals.
While professional sailors are often obliged to wear the boots from an official clothing supplier, Dubarry often sneak into onboard footage sent back from yachts in big races like the Volvo. ‘When they’re in the Southern Ocean a lot of the crew choose to wear a
Top: grip is everything, even on a bone-dry deck, but do try not to step on those slidy slidy sails… And then of course there is keeping the water out!
The Goodyear inspiration Some of the best ideas come from completely different and unexpected places. Michael Walsh recalls the genius of one of their engineers back in the day, Frank Hession. ‘Frank was one of those lateral thinkers with a strong sense of good engineering. When he was presented with a problem he would go away and think about it, then come back with something sketched out for us and would say, “Look, this is the direction I think we should go.”’
Dubarry’s patented NonSlip- NonMarking outer sole was a case in point. ‘On your typical deck shoe or sailing boot there’s a kind of ridge design that goes from right to left, a whole series of lines going laterally across the sole. But Frank had an interest in rally driving and motor racing generally. One of the challenges for us at the time was to produce a rubber outsole that offered the best non-slip performance; Frank equated that requirement to his experience in rally driving and indeed in Formula One racing, where clearly they spend a lot of R&D time trying to produce the best possible grip. ‘So he modelled the outsole pattern on the Goodyear car tyre. And you’ll see that a Dubarry outer sole has all these interconnecting channels, so it's moulded in a maze-type shape. The advantage of that is when somebody applies their body weight to the deck the water gets dispersed in six different directions, as opposed to a typical ridge sole where it will
either go left or right. And invariably what happens is the water will be forced to flow into the next channel of the ridge sole. And that's when you start to get aquaplaning.’ Frank Hession’s Goodyear solution helped address the aquaplaning problem, which is why Dubarry boots are among the grippiest in the market.
Extra-light is key to Dubarry’s spring-summer footwear Aside from the hardcore sea boots for which Dubarry are best known, earlier this year the brand’s latest spring/summer footwear range was launched. Even here technology plays a strong part in the Dubarry range. For example, the new Sailmaker men’s deck shoe boasts a sole that’s three times lighter than normal, thanks to Dubarry’s Extralight technology.
‘Most deck shoes have a straight rubber sole which makes it quite hard underfoot,’ says Walsh. ‘That might be OK for periods onboard, but it becomes uncomfortable if you’re wearing it all day as a leisure shoe. So we’ve taken the concept of a dual-compound sole from our boots, where you have a rubber outsole and a midsole (which might be made of polyurethane for a boot, or in the case of the Extralight it’s made of EVA which is a really lightweight material). So it has the advantage of giving you that nice underfoot comfort and shock absorbency, but it actually looks very smart as well because it doesn't look too chunky.’
SEAHORSE 67
q
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96
