Custom sailmaking is an old but growing business in midcoast Maine, and it’s also something of an art. Sails must be functional yet beautiful; lightweight, tough and versatile.
Sailmakers – like the crew of a sailboat – must use teamwork to get the job done. It’s no coincidence that Doug Pope was a sailor first, then a sailmaker. The proprietor of Pope Sails and Rigging in Rockland, he started in the business 21 years ago, in Rochester, N.Y.
He raced sailing dinghies in high school, then spent five or six years restoring an old wooden sloop. It was hardly a racer. He left a good-paying job at a lumberyard to work for a fledgling sail loft, Haarstick, and his responsibilities increased as the firm grew. Pope said the Rochester Yacht Club is a beehive of sailing activity including J-24 world championships. Ready for a change, he and his wife, Beth, an educator, moved their family to Warren. Doug started making sails nine years ago, in the Warren Academy building across the street from their home. Their school-age sons, Tristan and Collin, help in the business. Regular employees include experienced sailor-sailmakers Mike Whitehead and Jeff Gove. Pope, Gove and Whitehead have sailboats stored right beside the shop, awaiting spring launching.
Besides sailing, Pope and his employees like the same kind of music in the shop, and Pope thinks that’s important. “You have to have a certain temperament. You have to be on the same page. We spend more time with each other than with our families.”
Pope Sails moved first to the former Edwards Ice Cream plant on Tillson Avenue in Rockland, then, a couple of years ago, to its current location on Park Street. “We almost immediately outgrew it,” Doug said, explaining that he plans to build a second floor loft into the tall steel building, a former glass business, giving him twice the floor space.
Current accounts at Pope Sails include Maine Cat of Bremen, builders of catamarans and occasional trimarans, sailboat kit builder Arch Davis of Belfast, and customers as far away as Bermuda. New sails are 70 percent of Pope’s business, repair and replacement sails about 15 percent, and rigging fills the remainder of the firm’s volume. Gone are the days when customers wanted sails made from natural fiber. Today, sails are often Kevlar, or very strong and resilient Mylar.
One thing holds true for modern fabric as well as traditional sails. If you leave them exposed to sunlight, they won’t last. Sails can withstand moisture and hard use, but failing to protect sails them from ultraviolet rays – when not in use – will destroy them.
Pope said he and other area sailmakers worked at Bohndell Sails in Rockport, a loft that dates to 1870. Gambell and Hunter Sailmakers in Camden uses a historic sail loft just off Limerock Street. Sails are also crafted at Aurora Sails and Canvas of Camden, Hallett Traditional Sails of Rockland, Bayview Rigging and Sails of Falmouth, Maine Sailing Partners of Yarmouth, Quantum Northeast of Freeport, and Nathaniel S. Wilson of Boothbay Harbor.