We are in the midst of another great year here at Haarstick. We want to end it with a bang, so our standard Fall Discount Program is starting early and ending early. This means that you will get up to 23% OFF on 06 labor and cloth costs, so for the best deal of 2006, act now.

15% DISCOUNT FOR ONE SAIL, 20% FOR TWO OR MORE SAILS
ADDITIONAL 3% DISCOUNT FOR CARBON RACING SAILS

ALL INFORMATION REQUIRED TO BUILD THE SAIL MUST BE AVAILABLE TO US BY 10/31/2006

50% deposit with balance due on completion prior to shipment, or pick up OR within 30 days of invoice if stored at our loft for the spring. Storage for new sails is free.

ALL INFORMATION REQUIRED TO REPAIR THE SAIL MUST BE AVAILABLE TO US BY 10/31/2006

FREIGHT AND NYS TAX EXTRA WHERE APPLICABLE

SALE INQUIRY: sales@haarsticksailmakers.com

The end of September 2006, marks the 25th anniversary of Haarstick Sailmakers’ move from Ithaca to our original Rochester location at the Stutson Street bridge, along the driveway into Shumway Marine. When I started the loft in 1970, I never imagined that this move would ever come. When it did happen, I often wondered how a financial risk of this magnitude would play out. Would we be able to overcome the huge effort and dislocation of our key employees, not to mention the financial burden of this move. The first two years were tough, both financially and personal, but just as we started to get our heads above water, the loft burned down to the ground on July 23, 1983 !

Earlier that day, the landlord entered the loft and asked if I would mind if he “tapped” into my electrical and gas service so he could power up the side bay for his son’s new business. I of course told him NO, and to call RG&E for his own hook up. About an hour later, burning tiles started falling from our hung ceiling, and the west wall of the building started to collapse inwards as the roof was breached by the fire. After a brief and futile effort with a fire extinguisher, I followed the rest of the crew as we all ran from the building- and not a moment too soon.

After the fire had been put out that evening, I drove to Ithaca to pick up my son who would be with me for the next two weeks. I broke the news to him the next morning as we drove over to the loft site to see if there was anything left that was still usable. I didn’t know how he would take the news, as he was just shy of his fourth birthday, but when we stood there looking at the smoldering rubble, he said: “Don’t worry Dad, I know you will be OK.” I was stunned, hearing that from a little kid, but it was definitely exactly what I needed to hear at that moment.

Later that day, I got a call from Stu Sill. He just heard about our fire, and wanted to know when we would be able to set up shop at his loft in Sodus. Stu actually offered us the use of his sail loft 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, until we were able to find a new one of our own! I was taken totally by surprise. Stu was willing to cease his own sailing making business in order to make room for us! What an incredibly generous and gracious offer he made! I will always be grateful for Stu’s kindness. I would also like to mention that Frank Shumway gave us the use of the shed next to his store to set up a temporary office, and phone, so we could begin to contact our customers, and those that had been affected by our fire. I can only imagine how much harder it would have been to recover, if ever, if we had been totally out of business for the next several months. I will always be grateful for the many acts of kindness that we received during this difficult period.

We were also fortunate to find a new site for our loft at 1415 North Clinton Ave. It was a huge facility, and having been vacant for a long time, needed a lot of work to make it into a sail loft. While the renovations would be expensive, the rent was cheap. After a very long and strenuous 9 weeks, we were able to settle our insurance, move into our new home.

Two years later, on a Wednesday afternoon, at the end of August, I received a call from my friend Jack Lynch. He asked if I would be interested in buying the Gerber cutter, but he needed an answer by Friday morning. Jack and I, together with Ian Bruce formed Chesapeake Cutters in Annapolis , MD in 1973 to start up the world’s first automated sail cutting business. The primary market would be cutting the vast number of Laser sails for world wide distribution to finishing sail lofts around the world. I have written about this ground breaking project in our past newsletters, and it was a true break through in sailmaking, thanks in very large part to the genius of Jack Lynch. However, in the early eighties, the cutter business fell on hard times. Performance Sailcraft, the original manufacturers of the Laser went through bankruptcy and the company in Europe that was building Lasers at that time went back to “hand-cut” sails from a local loft. In short, there was not enough large scale cutting and finishing business left to carry on. While I waited for Mark Sertl to do his MBA analysis and “run the numbers”, I had pretty much made up my mind to meet Jack’s price, and buy the cutter. We had been cutting all our custom spinnakers on this machine since the spring of 1974, and I realized it was time to get every sail we made cut on this incredible machine. If we had it in house, we would have to find a way to program our upwind sails for cutting, just as we had for all our spinnakers back in 1973. On Friday morning, I called Jack and told him he had a deal. He would arrange to transport it to Rochester , and help us set it up, and train us to run and repair it. On a blustery day in late September, we craned the machine over the 3^rd story roof of our building, through the window in the back, and rested it safely in its new home.

Over the next two years, we developed a CAD program that could define the panels of all our upwind sails so accurately, that no fairing of any kind was required after panel assembly. I have no way of knowing for sure, but I think was the first, or at least one of the very first, CAD programs to go on line in sailmaking. However, I am sure that it was, and still is the most accurate CAD and cutting system in the sailmaking business!

As the years passed, the surrounding area of Rochester near our loft became more and more dangerous. The final straw for me was a broad daylight shooting just outside the loft in the parking lot. It also didn’t help that the current landlord was not willing to sign any lease over one year at a time. It was obvious that it was necessary to move the company for the fourth time in its existence. In August of 1997, I found a suitable building at our present location, and it was for sale: no more leases! The time had come to pony up and buy our loft property. Again, it was a tough push. Only six weeks between purchase of the new loft site and the end of the lease. Moving your house is tough, but moving a business is at least 10 times worse!

After a difficult 2 1/2 months, we were finally back in business in our new and permanent home, here at 1461 Hudson Avenue . It may only be a few miles away for the old loft site, but 2 miles can be a different world in Rochester .

So after 25 years, we have come to the end of our 36^th fiscal year on September 30^th. I am very grateful for the tremendous support that we have received for all these years. This past year broke a 15 year record, both in sales and net profit. We are fiscally strong:

absolutely NO debt, and a perfect payment record for many years with our suppliers!

I want to thank our very hard working crew, but especially all our customers, whose confidence in us and the products we make have made this terrific year possible!

Our business is much different now than it was in the early nineties. We no longer do any large scale manufacturing like Laser sails, and very little resale business. The vast majority of our new sails are custom made for individual customers. We have learned that this is the best way to provide our customers with sails, designed and built for their individual needs, at the best possible value.

We are very grateful for the support of all our customers, and hope that we may continue to earn your confidence and support in the coming years. But I personally want to thank all of you who have made it possible for me to continue for so many years doing what I love best: designing and building custom sails!

J/24 Changing of the Colors Regatta – 2^nd place (out of 58 boats) – Al Merhcant

“…Then one rainy day this summer I was sitting in the boat and said to myself, self- you should read the (Haarstick) tuning guide, so I did. I had to move the mast butt 30mm forward. Which then required me to re-laser the rig. So, I did all that and this was the first time we have competed against anyone off the lake. And to answer your question, we had boat speed to BURN and pointed a min. of 5-7 degrees higher than anyone. Down wind we are always fast with that spin. BUT, finally upwind too!!! The only bad thing was it seems when it rains over an 1” in a couple of hours, that your genoa tell tales tend to stick.(ha-ha).

Kris Werner has been using our chute this year. He used it to win at the above mentioned regatta and had this to say about his downwind speed at the NA’s:

“…our downwind boat speed was absolutely awesome, we could sail much lower and faster than all of our competition, so much so that we would worry more about keeping a lane clear to leeward than windward!”