Sunday Sailing: Quantum San Diego
This sail loft combines modern design with old-fashioned quality control.
I used to have a lot of friends who built stuff with their own two hands for work. Now I have only two, and they both work at the same sail loft: Quantum San Diego. I met George Szabo and Eric Heim sailing Snipes, and this week Eric and I will compete in the 2014 Snipe Western Hemisphere and Orient Championship. Sailors have gathered here from North and South America and Japan to compete for the top prize, and many of the sails we'll see on the starting line sport the green Q logo. Which means they were built right here in San Diego, on this loft floor.
The open floor makes it possible to lay out sails, but every other square inch of space is filled with tools, old patterns, and supplies.
The loft was started by Mark Reynolds a few decades ago, though everyone here is more focused on winning sailboat races than celebrating exact anniversaries. Mark is a double Olympic Gold medalist in the Star, a classic keelboat that had a long run as a member of the Olympic family. Mark combined his passion for sailing with building a business around making those Star boats (his own, and many of his fellow Olympians) go just a little bit faster, by constantly tweaking and upgrading the designs and then testing them on the water. He also sailed Snipes, and finished second at the Worlds in 1979, so applying his design knowledge to that class was a natural.
George (who won the Snipe Nationals 5 times, once with me as crew) is also a Star World champion, so there's plenty of competitive drive in this loft. He's been working with Mark since he graduated from college, and has helped make the transition to computerized design and panel cutting. The sails are still put together by hand, in the back of the loft, but small changes to the shape and pattern layouts can now be made ahead of time and studied on the screen.
Of course it doesn't do any good to design fast sails if the build quality control isn't up to snuff, and that's where Eric comes in. Having someone managing production who is actually then using the sails at regattas means the details get taken care of. I've bought a lot of sails from these guys in the past few years, and every single one has come out of the bag ready to go win races. As a customer, I really appreciate that.
While so many of us have made the transition to creating only on screen, it's great to be reminded that working with your hands still happens. At least here in San Diego, at the Quantum Sails loft.
