“The Pope” has died: good wind for your last board Mr. Lowell North

Not just a man died, an icon died, what we could perhaps call the daddy of modern sails died. Or “The Pope,” the nickname given to him by sailors his age. At 89, at his home in Point Loma (San Diego, Calif.), Lowell North, founder of North Sails in 1957, two-time Olympic medalist, Star class legend, and one of the men who most influenced modern sailing and the technology applied to it, passed away. Born in 1929 in Spirngfield, Missouri, through its work over its 30 years of ownership, North Sails has become what it is today, which is an indispensable benchmark for the world’s most important regattas, such as the America’s Cup or the Ocean Race.

At the age of 14 he was racing in Star with his father, but he often finished last. So young Lowell decided that the shape of his mainsail was not right, trimmed it, and started running. So strong that in the Star he went on to win four world titles, and one Olympic gold, as well as Olympic bronze in the Dragon class.

But it is also and especially in the world of sails that Lowell North has left his mark. He realizes that the sailmaker’s job cannot be just a craftsman’s job; he senses that it needs to be taken a step further. In 1957, he opened his first loft and at the same time went to study and became an aerospace engineer. What North understands is that you need a scientific approach, and that’s what all the sailmakers in the world use today, thanks in part to his insight.

But this is not his only insight. Lowell North understands that to grow his brand he needs testimonials, he needs the strongest sailors who will not only convey the brand but also make crucial contributions to product development with their experience. And so North gathers around him the best sailors, the best technicians, to make in effect what will be a great revolution in the world of sails. Thus was born a group of “Tigers”; the “Tigers” as they were renamed: names like Tom Whidden (who to this day is CEO of North Sails, Tom Schnackenberg (the physicist with the long mustache), John Marshall (a biochemist with a brilliant mind and a great sailor).

leggi anche

Transat Café l’Or: another twist for Class 40s, could still change everything

Schnackenberg himself is one of the crucial figures in the development of North Sails, along with Lowell. Tom was a physicist by profession, in addition to becoming a sailor. In the 1970s he worked with North Sails from New Zealand and was the first to realize the crucial importance of “digitizing” the sailmaker’s work, thanks to the development of information technology and design software. It was precisely “Schnack” who developed a database that contained a large number of possible different profiles for each sail, modeling each design with 2D design software he devised. That was the decisive breakthrough, and it is in those years that the success that North Sails’ design software, and databases, have today is based.

In 1977, North landed in the America’s Cup world, and on Lowell’s instructions, the head of Enterprise’s sail program was Tom Schnackberg himself, in a union in which the skipper was Lowell North himself. It went badly, Enterprise was swept away by Ted Turner’s Courageous, which won the domestic selection and became the American defender for the America’s Cup, a defense that was later successful against the Australians. But the consecration in the America’s Cup was only postponed. Team North stays in the loop, and 1983 brings a new opportunity. The two boats competing for the America’s Cup final are in fact both North Sails sailed. On the one hand Dennis Conner with Liberty and tactician one of the “tigers,” Tom Whidden; on the other side a group of Australian rowdies led by skipper John Bertrand. Behind the Australian team, in addition to the eclectic genius of Alan Bond, however, is the “paw” of Tom Schnackenberg proposing to the Aussies what Conner’s Americans still didn’t trust: bow sails triradially trimmed and finished in aramid fiber, Kevlar, which North Sails had developed while still experimental. The story goes that Australia II interrupted an unchallenged 150-year rule of the Stars and Stripes with its victory.

Many people remember the famous fins of the Australian boat, but triradial genoa and aramid fibers from that day became something indispensable in the racing world.

After this international acclaim, Lowell North decided to sell the sailmaker and retire, but left a clear imprint and his Tigers in what would become indisputably the world’s largest sailmaker. So it was not just a man who died, a sailor and a sailmaker. Lowell North with his insights, his method of working, was one of the fathers of modern sailing. Good wind then to the Pope on his last race.

Mauro Giuffrè

leggi anche

How well Zorzi and Gamenara did at the Mini Transat! And meanwhile, the Class 40s at the Transat Café l’Or…