Working sail
Mainsail
Full-length battens, three reefs, moulded head. The one sail you never take off, so it is the one worth over-specifying.
Area45 m²
From£2,980
Vantage Sails — Loft 4, Saxon Wharf, Southampton SO14 5QF
Winter service list open · cloth in by 30 November 2026
Est. 1995 · Solent · 12 people on the floor
Speed is a
shape.
A sail is not a size, it is a surface. We survey your rig under load, model the flying shape at every angle you will actually sail, cut the cloth on our own floor at Saxon Wharf, and come out with you to tune it. Nothing here is ordered from a catalogue.
Fig. 01 — the test platform
Sheet 50/A · 1:120
01 The record
Measured,
not claimed.
Every sail that leaves Loft 4 is photographed under load on trial day and its section shape filed against the design. Thirty-one seasons of that file is why the next one comes out right.
0Sails cut on this floor since 1995
0Seasons on the Solent, same building
0%Owners who come back for the next suit
0Class wins in the 2026 season alone
02 The bench
Ask the boat
what it wants.
This is the velocity-prediction bench we run on every design job, cut down to three dials. It solves boat speed at each true wind angle from sail-force coefficients, apparent-wind geometry, righting moment and induced drag — then depowers the rig exactly as you would, the moment heel runs past 26 degrees.
Cloth
Overlay
Platform: Vantage 40 · LWL 10.90 m · 7,800 kg · RM 50 kNm at 25°
Fig. 02 — polar diagram, boat speed against true wind angle
Membrane · 14 kn · 100%
Selected suit
Dacron 8.6 oz reference
Speed rings, 2 kn
Flying shape at the beat — membrane
Heel at beat—
Draft depth—
Max draft at—
Leech twist—
Close-hauled target speed—
Optimum beat angle, true—
Tacking through—
Beam reach, 90°—
Broad reach, 135°—
Best downwind VMG—
Trim note — what we would tell you on the rail
Working it out…
Reuben Pyke · loft manager · 31 seasons
03 Cloth
What the cloth
does under load.
Cloth is bought on stretch, not on price. A woven Dacron gives back roughly nine times the elongation of a moulded membrane at the same load — which is another way of saying your carefully designed shape becomes somebody else's by Thursday. Pick a family and the whole page follows it.
Vantage Membrane VX
Moulded in one piece over a curved table, fibres laid on the load paths the design predicts. Nothing to shrink, nothing to bias-stretch.
- Build
- Carbon / Technora, moulded
- Stretch
- 0.11 index
- UV life
- 6 seasons
- Shape life
- 6 seasons
- Cloth from
- £119 / m²
| Cloth | Construction | Weight g/m² | Stretch | UV | Shape life | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cruise 260Working sails | Woven polyester, resin-tempered | 292 | 1.00 | 12 yr | 6 seasons | £41 |
| Cruise HMHigh modulus | Woven polyester, high-tenacity warp | 322 | 0.78 | 12 yr | 7 seasons | £49 |
| Solent CrossClub racing | Cross-cut laminate, polyester scrim | 238 | 0.34 | 7 yr | 5 seasons | £68 |
| Solent RadialInshore racing | Tri-radial laminate, aramid scrim | 215 | 0.21 | 6 yr | 5 seasons | £86 |
| Membrane VXGrand prix | Moulded, carbon / Technora tapes | 186 | 0.11 | 6 yr | 6 seasons | £119 |
| Membrane OceanOffshore | Moulded, taffeta both faces | 232 | 0.14 | 9 yr | 8 seasons | £134 |
04 The floor
Six stages,
one building.
Nothing is sent out. The survey, the design, the plot, the cut, the assembly and the sea trial all happen between the same four walls at Saxon Wharf, which is why we can tell you who put every seam in your sail.
Measure
We come to the boat.
05 Inventory
The suit,
sail by sail.
Areas shown are for the 12.2 m platform on this page. Yours will differ; the quote below scales every one of them from your own length overall.
Working sail
No.1 Genoa, 106%
The all-round headsail for four to sixteen knots. Foam luff if it lives on a furler, hanks if it lives in a bag.
Area50 m²
From£2,640
Heavy air
J3 Blade
Non-overlapping, cut flat and high-clewed so it clears the wave that comes aboard at twenty-five knots. Reefing in a bag.
Area32 m²
From£1,890
Reaching
Code Zero
Torsional luff cable, top-down furl, cut for 65 to 110 degrees apparent. The sail that turns a slow passage into a fast one.
Area92 m²
From£3,420
Running
A2 Runner
Deep asymmetric in 0.9 oz nylon for 120 to 165 degrees. Radial head, wide shoulders, snuffer included as standard.
Area150 m²
From£2,760
Reaching
A1.5 Reacher
Flatter shoulders than the A2 and cut in 1.2 oz for the long Channel legs where the breeze is forward and building.
Area138 m²
From£2,980
Storm canvas
Storm Jib
Orange 340 g/m² Dacron, ISAF-compliant, with its own removable stay so you are not wrestling a furler at four in the morning.
Area10.5 m²
From£690
Storm canvas
Trysail
Sheeted to the deck, hoisted on its own track, orange like the jib. Bent on before you leave if the forecast has any doubt in it.
Area14 m²
From£840
Showing all eight sails
06 Quote
Price the suit
before you ring us.
Areas are scaled from length overall on the same rules our design office uses, cloth is charged by the square metre, labour at £68 an hour, hardware at cost plus ten. The number you get here is the number on the written quote, give or take a survey.
Estimate 50/2026 — indicative, ex-survey
12.2 m masthead
SubtotalBefore tax£0
VAT at 20%UK registered vessels£0
Total—£0
- Deposit of £0 on order, balance on delivery to the boat.
- Rig survey and measurement included within fifty miles of Southampton.
- First season's re-cut free if the shape has moved beyond the design tolerance.
- Every sail carries our name, the loft hand's initials and the date it left the floor.
07 Logbook
Owners,
on the record.
Three of the boats we look after, in their owners' words. All three are within an hour of the loft, which is rather the point.
“The old main was four seasons old and I had stopped noticing how tired it was. Ida put the new one up and we sailed the same beat twice — four tenths of a knot quicker and three degrees higher, on the same rig, in the same breeze. You cannot argue with the plotter.”
“We took the membrane suit round the Fastnet Rock and back with thirty-eight knots across the deck off Land's End. Not a stitch moved. The trysail came out of its bag for the first time in six years and went up in the dark without an argument, which tells you who cut it.”
“I am a cruising man and I told them so. They talked me out of the expensive cloth and into a better-built Dacron, then spent a Saturday morning teaching my wife and me to use the backstay. That is the sort of shop this is.”
- 2026Round the Island RaceBright Angle, J/122 — full Vantage membrane suit1st IRC 2C
- 2026RORC Myth of MalhamPetrel, Sun Fast 3300 — two-handed2nd overall
- 2026Cowes WeekThree boats, three classes, one loft3 class wins
- 2025Nab Tower RaceKestrel Light, First 40.7 — Solent Radial suit1st IRC 3
- 2025Poole Bay RegattaTwo boats on the same design, ten minutes apart1st & 2nd
08 Questions
The ones
you should ask.
If yours is not here, ring the loft on 023 8033 6120 and ask for Reuben. He will be on the floor, so give it a moment.
Is membrane worth three times the price of Dacron?
On the bench above, at fourteen knots, the membrane suit is worth roughly a fifth of a knot upwind and holds it as the breeze builds, while the Dacron gives shape away every time the load goes on. Over a four-hour race that is minutes. Over a Channel crossing it is barely a cup of tea. If you race, buy the shape. If you cruise, buy the better-built Dacron and spend the difference on a decent lazy pack — we will say so out loud.
What do you actually measure when you come to the boat?
Forty-one points. Rig dimensions I, J, P and E; spreader sweep and mast section; headstay sag under load, which we take by halyard tension gauge on a windy day rather than guessing; track and car positions; sheeting base; existing sail shapes photographed under load from three fixed stations. It takes about three hours and you are welcome to come along.
How long will a sail actually keep its shape?
Shape life and UV life are different things and we quote both. A cross-cut Dacron main on a boat sailing three hundred hours a season will still be sound at ten years and shapeless at six. A moulded membrane is finished when the film delaminates, usually five to six seasons on the same hours. Ask us to look at yours at haul-out and we will tell you honestly, in writing, whether you have a season left.
Can you re-cut what I already have?
Often, and it is a quarter of the price. If the cloth is still stiff but the draft has crept aft, taking a strip off the luff curve and re-shaping the leech will move it forward again and buy two seasons. If the cloth has gone soft between the fibres, no amount of cutting will fix it and we will not take your money for the attempt.
Do you come sailing with us?
Yes, and it is in the price of every new sail. One of us joins you for the first sail, sets the marks on the sheets and the halyards, photographs the new sail under load from the leeward rail, and files those photographs against the design. If the shape has come out wrong we take the sail back off the boat that afternoon.
What is the winter service list?
Bring the whole suit in between November and February and we wash it, dry it flat, check every seam and batten pocket, repair what needs it, and hang it in the racks until April — £14 a square metre all in, with the repairs quoted before we do them. Book by 30 November and the collection from your berth is free anywhere between Chichester and Poole.
Who owns the design of my sail?
You do, jointly with us, and we will hand over the flying-shape file if you ever want another loft to build from it. We would rather you did not, obviously. But holding a customer hostage with a file format is not a way to run a business that depends on people coming back after six seasons.
Loft 4 — Saxon Wharf, Southampton
Come and stand
on the floor.
Bring the old main in the back of the car. We will lay it out, put a straightedge across it, and tell you what it has left. No appointment, no charge, and the kettle is always on.