Viewpoint: What Does NTG Acquisition Mean for Independent Canadian Sail Lofts?

Sept 12, 2024

By Keven Piper

News of NTG (North Technology Group) buying Quantum Sails and Doyle Sails has lots of sailors talking about sail lofts lately. Talking with some colleagues in the industry even those working under those banners were surprised, but not really surprised by the news. Some commented that they haven’t had much communication about the direction of the brands for quite a while now.

It is an interesting time for the industry regardless of this large corporate consolidation of ownership. When I became involved with sailmaking in the early 1990’s, there were at least twice as many sail lofts, and every loft had some specialty that endeared them to their customers. This was the very tail end of the ‘golden years’ of sailmaking, where the loft could churn away with enough margins so that the owners and senior sailmakers could spend the winters racing down south. This was changing as North was steadily investing in moving most sail production to Sri Lanka, and they started buying up successful independent lofts to hang their shingle on. In some cases, the early offshore advantage was used undercut pricing to get more market share in some classes and regions.

Of course, most sail labels now spread their production around the world to lower labour cost markets, but North was one of the first top tier lofts to commit to moving the majority of their production.

I saw this expansion of North on the east coast with some loft owners nearing retirement and taking the payout to become an employee and collect a steady salary for a few more years. At this time, I was lucky to have stayed out of a franchise and had an agreement with Steve Haarstick at Haarstick Sailmakers in Rochester NY. He and his team were able to provide computer designs and a well-documented build standard, along with top notch CNC cloth cutting on his Gerber. His loft was able to provide cut panels, cut/sew/fair kits, or even finished product if we needed more capacity. Later on, I began supporting his loft with computer design work as well. It was a great synergy of ideas, equipment and labour until his retirement and sale of his loft and the eventual move to a franchise.

Many privately owned lofts already work together with each other and with cloth producers to develop better designs and share capabilities without the handcuffs of franchise agreements.

Some of the production facilities that produce sails for some of the brands involved in the purchase also produce product for other lofts. The sails may be made in the same place, but they are distinctly different products. There are also large working groups of sail design software users, where designers meet and share ideas, and provide feedback to the software developers to add more features. A foiling A-cat designer or a Folkboat sail designer have some different needs but can use the same technology!

Today

I do design and production consulting all over the world for other lofts while using some of their production capability in the manufacture of my sails. If I need a membrane product, they can produce it for me. I can also share in their lower cost of materials to keep my prices competitive and maintain a high level of quality. If I want to use a cloth from Dimension Polyant, or Challenge, or Contender, I can get it ordered in and build the best sail possible using the right cloth for the application. Let the designers design and spec the best cloth for the application and not be limited to the sailmaking franchise production goals and inhouse branded cloth selection.

This consolidation of the large brands is just a new phase of building market share, except headed by a capital investment group rather than a sailmaking enterprise. It will likely be successful for the investors as they can negotiate higher margins for their lofts, and likely institute more costly franchise fees for the lofts that are still franchises. If the perceived value of one of these brands goes up, they may even sell it off. This should help the independent lofts as well, as they become even more price competitive and can offer better service to the sailors.

I’ve included a list of sail lofts in Canada that have a) a physical loft that provide repair service, as well as b) offer new sails. If you don’t see a brand, please note that I’ve left out some vapourware lofts that only sell products and don’t provide service and repairs, and I’ve left out the NTG group of lofts.

Give your independent lofts some love if you want to keep them around!