KYLE LANGFORD
Technology Old head young shoulders
There is no let up in the queue of top international sailing talent lining up to join the literally ‘fizzing’ performance team at Doyle Sails... America’s Cup, SailGP and Volvo veteran Kyle Langford is just the latest
A brief exchange during a training session aboard the supermaxi Comanche ahead of the 2019 Sydney Hobart race provided Doyle Sails with one of those rare sparks that add impetus to company strengths and change individual career paths. It illustrates Doyle’s drive to build a formidable talent pool of top sailors to develop, refine and test new technologies while helping customers sail faster towards achieving their goals. The Comanchemoment came in
one of those periods when the boat is settled in its groove, the breeze is steady and the crew, perched along the rail, can briefly catch their breath. Kyle Langford, a young Australian trimmer who had already packed two America’s Cup campaigns and a Volvo Ocean Race into his career, was chatting to fellow Moth sailor Tom Johnson about ideas for a new sail design. Taking advantage of the lull in activity, Doyle Sails CEO Mike Sanderson made his way forward and slotted into the line-up on the side deck. Langford asked if Doyle was doing any work in theMoth class. ‘We are very keen to get involved,’
Sanderson replied, ‘but we’re looking for somebody to work with.’ ‘Well,’ said Langford, ‘we’re definitely your guys.’ The resulting collaboration led to a podium finish at the next Moth worlds and a job for Langford at Doyle Sails. For Langford that day on Comanche
had already been an epiphany about Structured Luff technology. ‘It was an absolute revelation,’ he recalls. ‘The first time we set the new Structured
60 SEAHORSE
Luff J1, the load on the headstay went from20 tons with the previous sail to 14 tons for the same luff projection. It was unbelievable.’ He immediately grasped the
implications. ‘If you reduce loads by more than 25%, you can reduce the structure in the boat and rig by 25%. It all gets smaller and lighter and the performance gains are huge. ‘Just reducing the load was a big
gain on Comanche, but if you start from scratch, it can revolutionise the way boats are designed and built.’ In the three years since, Langford
has won two SailGP championships as wing trimmer with the Australian team led by Tom Slingsby. The Doyle Sails synergy continues in that fast- paced arena, with Doyle providing one-design headsails for the fleet. Langford’s recruitment shows how
Doyle Sails targets the world’s best sailors in support of its “By Sailors for Sailors” ethos and its determination to keep freshening the pool with a younger generation of stars. ‘I already knew about Kyle’s
racing record,’ says Sanderson. ‘Beyond that, what impressed me was his technical intelligence, his clear understanding of what makes a boat go fast and his ability to communicate his thoughts and ideas, which is invaluable for technical design and development. ‘He clearly had the drive to
succeed and would be an asset both within the Doyle Sails culture and crucially in helping our customers achieve their performance goals.’ Langford has always been
younger than his sailing peers. ‘I’ve
Above: while training for the Sydney Hobart Race aboard Comanche, Kyle Langford had an epiphany about Structured Luff sail technology and landed a job at Doyle Sails
been fortunate that throughout my career, I have always been the young one, so I’ve had more experienced people to learn from,’ he says. He grew up in a sailing family
based around Lake Macquarie YC north of Sydney. ‘My brother Mark is four years older. When he was eight, he was able to join sailing lessons but I was not happy just watching on.’ Kyle was so insistent that the club
made a special exemption to enable him to start lessons alongside his brother at just four years old. ‘After about 10 years, our sailing started getting more competitive,’ he recalls. ‘When I was 14 or 15, I was not loving school. I preferred being on the water, so I looked for every opportunity to go sailing.’ At that stage he was sailing with
Evan Walker in 29ers and eyeing the Youth World Championships. But the selected 420 dinghy hardly lit their fire, so they switched to multihulls and started training in Hobie 16s. ‘Evan was in Sydney, a two-hour
drive south of Lake Macquarie. So for about nine months my mother would pick me up from school two days a week and drive me to Sydney for training sessions. I also spent every weekend in Sydney.’ Though they had little opportunity
for high-level racing in this period, Langford and Walker headed for South Korea and won the Hobie 16 youth worlds. ‘That was my first big international competition and I decided there and then that I wanted a career in sailing.’ Youthmatch racing, Laser and 18ft Skiff racing followed while he
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