ASK THE
EXPERTS
SAILS F E AT U R I N G
JACK CHRISTIANSEN
“Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail, and mankind the vessel” —Augustus Hare
T Jack Christiansen Jack Christiansen is the Loft Manager of North Sails in Seattle. Christiansen’s sailing roots go back to when he was a middle-schooler in Portland, Oregon, who was hooked on racing lasers. He continued his passion for sailing through his college years at the University of Washington, and started his own sailmaking company when in school in 1983. He was a collegiate All-American at UW with many notable wins. Christiansen has been a sailmaker ever since with names like Shore Sails of Puget Sound, Uhlman Sails Northwest, and now North Sails. He has been with North Sails since 1995. “I just wanted to keep sailing and racing, and this seemed like a good way to do it,” says Christiansen.
92 NORTHWEST YACHTING || OCTOBER 2017
he arrival of October signals to many competitive Pacific Northwest sailors that the fall sailing season is drawing nigh, and as a result sailmaking lofts are working overtime. The higher the winds, the faster the sewing machines whir. On the cruising side of the spectrum, owners fresh from summer cruising up north eye the coming rains and prepare accordingly for cloth-wrecking moisture. The mind turns over many sail-related questions this time of year. Forward-thinking (aka smart) boaters think about their goals of their boating future. What kind of sail should I go for this season? How do I keep this mainsail from getting all gross and moldy? We turned to Jack Christiansen, the Loft Manager of the North Sails, for some expert advice on sails. The loft, right above Fisheries Supply in Seattle, was full of sails both new and old when we visited. Christiansen graciously penciled us in during the morning before his bookedup day could whisk him onto the water and into marinas for clients. A lifelong sailor, collegiate sailing All-American, and sailmaker since 1983 when he started his own sailmaking company in college, Christiansen is a wellspring of information.
Q: What’s the typical day like? Is it booked up with you in the field or are you in the loft most of the time? Everyday is a big variety. A typical couple of days may be spent in the loft with my service manger completing repairs and preparing new sails for delivery. We like to put our sails on the boats in person with the customers after they purchase them to make sure the customers know how to use them, where the battens go, go over maintenance tips, and the like. We’ll get quote requests over the internet from our national webpage and we’ll respond to those. If someone wants to order a sail, we’ll get those parameters in and define what sail we’re ordering for them. The process from order request to sail delivery usually takes about two months. Q: I hear a lot about North Sails and how good they are through dock talk. Why? What makes them special and, in your experience with different makers and brands, do they deserve their reputation? Yes! North Sails is the largest sailmaking business in the world. The company is incredibly diverse and is always pushing the
edges of reality in terms of making sails. The 3Di sails, that we’ve been selling since their debut in 2010, are incredibly durable and used on both racing and cruising boats, as well as the Volvo 60 Around the World boats. 3Di stands for laminate integral sail and refers to North Sails’ patented technology that’s made of ultra-thin unidirectional spread filament tapes that’s preimpregnated with thermoset adhesive and arranged into a three-dimensional, molded, flexible composite membrane. Under load, it has a rigid shape, meaning less distortion underway and hence, less wind resistance from air distortion. Q: So is there a sharp divide between the types of sails used by racers and cruisers, or are there sail designs that are versatile for both? What I find challenging with sailmaking is that you can have three different boat owners who own the same boat, yet they have different goals in mind and thus need different sails. Every job is essentially a custom job, a puzzle for me to solve. North Sails has many products that may fundamentally be built the
We make sails for anybody and most of our clientele are cruisers. We do the smallest El Toro or Optimist as well as the super yachts over 300 feet.