Ten years ago, the author of a report on Sailloft Hamburg began by saying that not too much had happened in the loft in Hamburg's Altona district over the previous ten years. Now, another ten years later, the same could be said again. Except that the wooden floor seems a little more worn, the wall colour a little more faded and the old door sign, which refers to Hurricane and Caniibal custom-made sails, still hangs on the door. But has time really stood still here? By no means! Olaf Hamelmann and Gerrit Maaß have written a success story over the last 25 years, have gathered a loyal family and fan base around them and have retained their fire and passion for making sails - but have not thrown their principles overboard in favour of money and big dreams.
How did you two actually get together?
Olaf: I first worked at Easy Rider in the sailmaking workshop in Hanover in the 80s and then realised relatively quickly that I enjoyed making sails more than studying law. I then realised that I could do what they could do and opened my own workshop for custom-made sails in 1989.
Gerrit: I was already working in a sailmaker's shop in Itzehoe when I was at school in 1985. Later, the sailmaker's shop was in Heide and I commuted daily between studying dentistry in Hamburg, home in Itzehoe and Heide to work. That didn't make much sense. I also wanted to realise my own designs, of course, so I looked for a flat with a workshop in Hamburg and set up my own place. The big problem back then was that it was difficult to get hold of materials as a small sailmaker. So I bought things here and there. There were several custom-made sailmakers up here, but it never really worked out with them. I either bought cloth, passed it on to others and then waited ages for the money. Or they bought something, I paid for it, but the delivery took too long. At some point, a customer gave me the tip that there was a guy in Hanover. And it always worked with Olaf, you could always rely on him. Even if it was just a roll of black tape, he would quickly put it in my letterbox on the way to Heiligenhafen at night.
Olaf: We both had our brands, Gerrit Caniibal and I Hurricane, and at some point we decided over a crate of beer that it might make sense for us to join forces. But there was no talk of Sailloft Sails at the time. We wanted to keep both brands because we didn't want to lose our customers. In 1996, we opened Sailloft Hamburg here as a joint workshop.
Gerrit: There were 200 people here for the opening, all of whom we invited with flyers on the beach and through friends and friends of friends. At some point I was afraid the ceiling would collapse.
So how did Hurricane and Caniibal become Sailloft?
Olaf: On a sober note, we later realised that we could work better if we joined forces completely.
Gerrit: We got in touch with a marketing student through friends. She advised us to run everything under one umbrella brand. Since then, we have also used the original workshop name Sailloft Hamburg for the sails. A graphic designer friend of ours then turned both logos into one. However, Hurricane and Caniibal lived on in the sail names for the time being. The Curve, which still exists today, was actually a Caniibal custom-made sail.
But these were not yet standard sails?
Gerrit: No, they were still custom-made. We made about 200 sails a year, but realised that it was getting more and more complicated - integrated mast protectors, vario tops with buckles, screw-on sail tensioners. You had to have all that at the time, but it just took far too long.
Olaf: We realised that we couldn't carry on like this in the long term and thought about whether it would make more sense to produce somewhere in Asia. However, those were different times in 1997/98. There was no internet in that sense. We had only heard that there was a manufacturer in Sri Lanka that produced for other brands.
Gerrit: We only knew that the company belonged to a German and his name - nothing more. I spent more than three days searching through the registers at the Chamber of Commerce in Hamburg, which were bound books at the time. In the end, I found two companies that matched the name - but there was only a fax number. We then wrote to them and actually received a call from Sri Lanka.
Gerrit: In November 1999, we actually flew to Sri Lanka with templates for our series sails. Until we had them all ready, we were of course unable to build sails for customers. Friends supported us with money during this time so that we could pay the rent. After the first day of production, we got terribly drunk in our hotel room because we thought they wouldn't be able to do it. And the whole project died before it started. Compared to what was being produced there, our sail cuts were already quite complicated back then.
An older story here in the magazine said that your first order was for 60 sails.
Olaf: Yes, two different lines of sails, each in three sizes and two colours (laughs). The company owner said to us at the time, "Making sails is only fun for four figures - but I'll make you the sails."
Gerrit: The question then arose as to what would happen if we couldn't pay? He said: "Then I'll flood the world market with your 60 sails." That's how they are, the factory owners.
Nevertheless, he made your small number of pieces - why?
Olaf: We came to production very well prepared, we had sample sails with us and the complete templates. They didn't know that and were impressed. Others simply arrived with a picture and said, go for it. Our sail designs were comparatively complicated. One of the seamstresses, who still works there today, cried at first when she was asked to sew it because she was afraid of doing something wrong. But we were also able to show them that it works and how it works. In the end, we spent a lot of time in the factory over the next few years. We trained the workers, but also rethought our sail design and made it more suitable for production.
Did you already have plans back then to make it to four figures?
Olaf: No, we never had a master plan. The idea was actually to do it in parallel with the custom sails - in the first year we actually made a repeat order of 30 of them.
Gerrit: It was also difficult - we had previously told our customers that standard sails were poorly made and now we were making them ourselves. Some customers looked meticulously at every seam to see if they could find any difference to our custom design.
But at some point, the custom sails came to an end.
Gerrit: In the second year there were 180 sails, in the third 360, in the fourth 540 and after ten years we had reached 1000 sails a year.
Expansion - you are still doing everything on your own, sail designs, production monitoring, sales and even shipping the sails. Wouldn't support be helpful?
Olaf: Sure, but that's a maths exercise. If I were to hire a third person for the sales force, for example, then we would actually have to sell twice as many sails for it to pay off. The production in Sri Lanka would earn more money, but we wouldn't earn a cent more ourselves.
Gerrit: We have always tried to do this, but it takes a lot of time to build up a large distribution network abroad. If we want to do it quickly, we would have to travel everywhere ourselves - but we don't have the time. So all the foreign distributors we have approached us. It took longer, but we now sell throughout Europe and beyond.
Despite everything, you have continued to grow and now have a full range of sails, including racing sails. Does a pure racing sail pay off?
Olaf: No, definitely not economically. We started developing a racing sail in 2013 because we thought that if we were successful with it, the image would spread to our freeride sails. "Win on sunday, sell on monday!"
Gerrit: We had a young image with our wave sails, but we didn't reach the freeriders with them. The racing sails came onto the market in 2015 and were immediately very successful. Karin Jaggi set the world speed record with it and Patrik Diethelm set the second-fastest time ever in Lüderitz. We also did well in the national regattas. But that did absolutely nothing for the sales of freeride sails. In this area, people are probably much more interested in the surf test or trying out the sails at the festival or other test events.
In that time, you have also built up a relatively large team.
Olaf: We thought we could achieve something with it. We had Tonky Frans, Adam Sims, Karin Jaggi, Patrik Diethelm and a few other riders under contract. That cost us 40-50,000 euros a year. However, we quickly realised that the sales figures weren't increasing accordingly and scaled it back again - that's why we still exist today. In the long run, we would not have survived this cost apparatus.
Gerrit: To really capitalise on the image of the team riders for us, we would have had to push the whole thing with big marketing measures. The big manufacturers can do that or those who have enough money from home, but we can't do that.
Olaf: In principle, we already put 100 euros on every slalom sail we produce.
Nevertheless, you still see a lot of riders sponsored or supported by you today. Who was your first team rider?
Olaf: That was a funny story. We actually wanted to sponsor Jojo Walther, but he said to us: "You don't have to sponsor me, you have to sponsor Matze." We asked which Matze. "The one who works for you! He jumps much better front loops than I do." That was Matze Bade, who was working for us at the time. And we didn't realise he was such a good surfer. And so he became our first team rider and is still part of the family and has become a friend - as has Jojo, by the way.
Gerrit: With a few exceptions like Tonky, we never made written contracts with our drivers. As a young guy, Matze was once jealous that another driver had a written contract and wanted one too. So I asked him what he wanted me to put in his? 1) Matze is part of the family! 2. if Matze leaves the family, I'll have his legs broken! Matze was happy with that. Family is better than a contract. And I probably shouldn't watch so many mafia films.
Your "family" has been together for quite a long time and is very active.
Gerrit: Many of them have been with us for a long time and are very active. People like Florian Söhnchen or Matthias Genkel or Steffi Wahl, they make sure that they produce good stories for the magazine, with good photos. As a result, we are always present there. Adam Sims also makes it into the German magazine as an Englishman.
Olaf: That's worth its weight in gold for us. It's much more important than any rankings.
Gerrit: Of course we're also happy about good results in the regattas, of course! But it's always difficult to assess what it means for the current sales figures.
However, there have also been approaches from time to time that you work and develop with or for large companies.
Gerrit: Without wanting to go into detail. But you could perhaps say that all major projects have failed miserably. And that's probably a good thing. It always worked when we did our own thing. We've learnt that over the last few years.
Olaf: All these things, which we had high hopes for, actually always set us back with our own projects because they cost an incredible amount of time and money. Conclusion: Leave the big projects and concentrate on your own stuff.
Sailloft celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2021. So you two practically had a silver wedding anniversary. How does the marriage work?
Olaf: Good, we're still together. Otherwise the whole thing wouldn't work. If we couldn't work well together, then nothing would work here. So we've divided up the sailing lines a bit between us. At the moment, I mainly take care of the quad and air. I was less involved in the slalom sails.
Gerrit: That's the good thing about us. At the big manufacturers, there is usually a chief developer and he has an assistant. However, the two are never on an equal footing so that the assistant doesn't know too much and can end up sawing away at the boss's chair. It's completely different with us. As sailmakers, we are both completely equal in our company. That's extremely helpful when you're scratching your head over a particular problem with the sail and don't know what to do next. Then you have someone to tell you, have you ever tried this or that? That way you can quickly find a good solution together. That saves unnecessary prototypes.
Today, we don't have to discuss fundamental things like mast curve etc. when designing a new sail. We already developed our basic orientation together back in our custom-made days.
But are there different opinions when it comes to business decisions?
Olaf: Always. There are always different opinions, but we discuss them, weigh up the pros and cons and then come to a joint decision.
Gerrit: But we've never shouted at each other or anything like that when we disagree. People often think that we always agree on everything, but that's not the case at all. But then we talk about everything and find a solution that we can both get along with.
Your sail designs and colours have a very high recognition value. Evil tongues wonder when you will run out of orange sail fabric?
Olaf: Never (laughs). We've already struggled with the orange/white combination. Many people say that's our combination. But actually it is and will always be orange.
Gerrit: We usually make our designs ourselves. We've had designers whose sails looked great but couldn't be produced. There was a bit of a row and we were told: "Your sails look like they were designed on a sewing machine. At first, I was heartbroken by the comment. But then overnight I remembered that yes, that's exactly what characterises our sails. They are sewn together and don't just have a wild design printed on them. You can see that in our sails, but that's not a shame, it's more a sign of quality.
Apart from the designs, who tests and decides on the handling characteristics of a sail?
Olaf: Of course we have drivers from whom we get our feedback. But we don't just rely on them. We also collect a lot of opinions from our normal customers. They become our testers without realising it. Our team riders are all extremely good riders and can perhaps cope with sails that a normal surfer in Wulfen can't ride. That's why we always listen to both sides.
Gerrit: I don't have to give a slalom team rider our no-cam free-ridesegel Cross to test. It depends on completely different things than a race sail. The cross has to give early guidance, it has to be forgiving, it has to be able to cope with different masts, it has to be easy to trim and still hold up if someone crashes into it during a skid.
I think your Traction is a good example. It was the result of a design competition that we organised in surf magazine in 2006.
Gerrit: That's right. Back then you wanted a 7.5 metre sail that glided like a 9 metre sail. Most other manufacturers didn't take that seriously and didn't participate at all. We made three different sails with different concepts. The result was the Traction, which you tested alongside others in the magazine. In the end, we were able to produce and deliver the sails in series. The phone was ringing off the hook the next day. The 7.5 Traction sail is still the best-selling sail in a single size in a single season - it has brought us more acceptance with freeride sails than the whole racing sail story.
Listening to you, Sailloft will remain a two-man show in the future. That means Gerrit and Olaf do everything. Is that still fun?
Olaf: If I didn't enjoy it any more and everything got on my nerves, then I certainly wouldn't come here on Sundays to do one or two things.
Gerrit: When I was developing the slalom sails, I sometimes took them apart and reassembled them five times in my head before falling asleep at night. I came up with detailed solutions that I then had to quickly write down on a piece of paper before I fell asleep again. You're already working round the clock. It's not a nine-to-five job.
Olaf: This is our company, our baby, and it's still growing, albeit slowly. There are still opportunities.
Gerrit: There is still a long way to go. There's still something missing, like children's and youth sails, and a foil sail will certainly be coming soon. But everything as we manage it. Sailloft-like!
This interview first appeared in surf 6/2021
