Country's biggest sail loft is unfurled in Crosshaven with 'Nin' at the helm
The country’s biggest sailmaking facility has opened in Crosshaven as part of the leading international sailmaker group, Doyle Sails.
At the helm of the Cork franchise, which is “100% Irish-owned”, is professional sailor Nicholas ‘Nin’ O’Leary, whose partners in the venture include experienced sailor and sailmaker David Kelly and master sailmaker Cleo Watkin — who tutored Mr O’Leary as a schoolboy during a week of work experience sailmaking.
The three are operating out of a state-of-the-art sail loft in a premises that had been empty for decades, to the rear of what was once Hassett’s Restaurant in The Glen, Crosshaven.
The former Hassett’s, which later operated as cafe Grumpy and Wise, is due to re-open shortly as Priory Coffee — a Cork company with coffee shops in five locations across the county.
The sail loft is in an ideal location, on the doorstep of the Royal Cork Yacht Club (RCYC).
Mr Kelly, who is also involved in a Doyle Sails’ sail loft in Rush, Co Dublin, said their business “is one of the only sailmakers fully constructing sails in Ireland”.
“It’s quite nice to be able to do that because, if a sail isn’t fitting right, you can bring it back to the sail loft.
“Whereas if a sail comes in from somewhere like Sri Lanka and the geometry isn’t right, it’s not as straightforward.
“The [sail] panels can come in anything from 50-300 pieces, and we stick and sew them all together in the loft from start to finish,” he said.
They also offer a sail repair service and have been very busy recently with Volvo Cork Week, which ran in July.
“We were working all hours, providing an overnight repair service,” Mr Kelly said.
Mr O’Leary said they had “quite a few sails to make for Cork Week”, and business remains brisk as they gear up for Calves Week — which takes place in West Cork, starting August 6.
Mr O’Leary, who was his brother Peter’s training partner in the run-up to two previous Olympics where he competed in the star class, said people were “delighted” that they had opened.
As part of the New Zealand-based Doyle Sails’ group, Mr O’Leary said he had the advantage of being able to “call up one of their designers for advice at the drop of a hat”.
“We have the tech and the skillset that we need to build everything from sails for a small dinghy to a large superyacht,” Mr O’Leary said.
The sailor said he was happy to give advice to kids learning to sail on Optimists, small single-handed dinghies.
“I can show young fellows how to fix their sails,” he said. He has gone on to sail 200ft yachts “as tall as the Elysian”.
While the sailmaking trio had to use a generator to run their fledgling business for the first few weeks while they waited for a proper connection to the electricity grid, it’s all systems go now at the premises, which they are renting from Nicholas’ father, Anthony O’Leary, formerly of O’Leary Insurances, and more recently the buyer of Cork suburban shopping centre Douglas Court for €21.5m The Crosshaven premises - including what is now the sail loft as well as the coffee shop - was sold last year by Will Lyons, of ERA Downey McCarthy, for a sum believed to be in the region of €400,000.