SAILS: ‘Made in Oshkosh in 1956’
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The following is taken from a Appleton Post Crescent Dec 14th 1959 (page 28) article about Utopia’s sails and who made them in Oshkosh Wisconsin.
Made in Oshkosh in 1956
Appleton Post Crescent December 14th, 1959 (page 28)
John Morgan - Post Crescent staff writer
Oshkosh sails are durable, proved Fred Petersen, Sturgeon Bay shipbuilder who recently returned home from a three year trip around the world. His 65 foot schooner Utopia, with two masts and four working sails, made most of its leisurely journey spanked along by the sails.
Cut in 1956 by Lincoln H. Foster Oshkosh sail maker; Peterson's sails; after three years of bright sunlight, salt and fresh water spray, Low and high winds, need only minor repair. The sail maker found Peterson's Utopia sail job was the biggest ever tackled by Foster and his four assistants. Total sale area is 2,500 square feet. The Fisherman sail flying along the main forestay is 1,400 square feet alone.
GET THE LAST BIT OF PUSH!
Without sails to fly in the breeze off Liberian peninsula, Christopher Columbus and other early explorers could have left Europe only by rowboat. Thus, the sail was as essential to exploration as the wheel to the machine. The wide Atlantic Ocean would not have been spanned until the engines were invented.
The ancient art of sail making in this country will never die out, as long as there are lakes like Lake Winnebago and the Great Lakes, and men like Foster and his two assistants, Charles Stanicky and Steve Mauritz, who worked at squeezing the last bit of push out of the wind! Power sewing machine work is done by Miss Evelyn Schubert and Mrs. Ruth Kallin. In ancient Egypt, sails propelled huge river Nile barges between the Mediterranean and the first cataract; Aeneas, and his small band and their families fled by sailboat from the sack of Troy to North Africa, and then to Italy to found Rome, as the poet Virgil immortalized in his "Aeneid". Paul the Apostle made sails and tents to finance his travels, spreading Christianity.
TOOLS CHANGE LITTLE
In much of Asia, he sail is still used for commerce. In Maryland, oyster fishing boats may work only under sail. Sailmaker's tools have changed little in hundreds of years. Foster has speeded his operations, of course, by use of a special power sewing machines, but without marlinspike (for wire splicing), FID (for splicing ropes), "Stitch Heavier" (to set or tighten threads), needle and thread, Beeswax, (to preserve thread), and most important, Sailmaker's Palm; (the thimble to push the needles through heavy canvas and ropes), sails couldn't be made despite machine age innovations.
Sailcloth has gone modern. Earliest sails were of flax, jute, linen or cotton canvas. Since World War Two, canvas has hit the canvas, being replaced by synthetic fabrics. Each has its disadvantages, foster explained. For holding the wind, a sail must keep its pocket and otherwise the air flows past it and the boat's driving power is cut down. Racers of sailboats and ice boats spend many hours and dollars in getting the most out of the wind. Stretching ruins the pocket, so steel cables called check wires, are sewn inside most sails.
Before a sail is cut, the buyer must know what he wants to do. Ordering a new sail is much like having a cutaway coat made for a coronation. The buyer and the sail maker confer and come up with the desired design. Some buyers want sails for racing; others for pleasure sailing alone; others for both (a compromise). Some sails are for light wind, others to stand anything up to a typhoon. Some buyers want their sails flat and others full.
The first step in cutting a sail is to lay out the outlines in chock on the cutting floor. Cloth in strips twenty-four to thirty inches wide, is laid over the chalk marks and cut with trim allowances. All panels are held in place with awls and marked with pencil to aid in sewing together. Once sewn, the sail goes back on the floor for batten pockets (to hold thin stiffening strips in the back edges); and reinforcements. Then these are sewn by machine.
Next is the trip to the "alter" of sailmaking - the bench where all hand finishing operations are done. The headboard from which it is hoisted, ropes, grommets and all other fittings are attached at the bench. All hand sewn thread used is run over with beeswax, which prevents rot. (Foster uses other materials with the wax. Sail makers, he said, have their own formulas for the wax mix).
Used the gymnasium floor
To cut the Utopia's sails. Foster had to use the floor of Saint Mary's School gymnasium in Oshkosh. Ropes and hardware for the sails were extra heavy duty. The thirteen ounce material was entirely hand sewn from one side to reinforce the machine work on the other.
In the days of sailing ships, sailmakers' apprentices hired out for five to seven years of shop work and then went to sea at least a for a year. Every ship carries its own sail maker. That way they could learn how to correct problems and see where sails were chafing, said foster. Now the apprentice serves three years, at the and receives a state certificate and one from the master sail maker. But he has to be interested in sailing. Some apprentices only wait for Friday Night. Sailmakers themselves usually are rather durable. Foster learned his craft as an apprentice for Vousens and Pratt of Boston. Founded in 1851, the sail loft only went through two generations in its one-hundred and two years. It closed in 1953 after the two partners sons died. Many Sailmakers, Foster says, work until eighty or eighty-five years old!
Image caption:
In its original sense, the word manufacturer meant "to make by hand". Thus, the ancient art of sail making, as it still is carried on, is REAL manufacturing. Since the machines only handle a small amount of the work. Above, a spinnaker made at Lincoln H. Foster's Oshkosh sail loft is tested for draw in the front yard. The big sail of this design, used for extra speed in races, was developed in 1954 by the late Walter Raleigh Roller of Neenah. Foster purchased the patent and has marketed hundreds throughout the country. Cutting a new sail at right requires laying out the chalk pattern on the plank floor, then placing the sailcloth over the outline and holding it in place with awls. An iceboat sail is laid out for cutting by Charles Stanicky of Neenah, a sail maker for ten years.
Image caption:
Title numbers are sewn onto finished sails as above, with a stitching machine operated by Miss Ruth Kallin. Sail panels and batten pockets are machine sewn, but all other work is done by hand. Miss Evelyn Schubert, also of Oshkosh, works part time for Foster. A mainsails headboard is attached by Steve Mauritz at right, apprentice sailmaker at Foster's loft.
Image caption:
"First you make a wall, and then you make a Crown; First you tuck it up; Then you tuck it down". This jingle describes the Wall and Crown knot Lincoln Foster, Sailmaker, is tying in the end of a rope. Foster learned Sailmaking 23 years ago in Boston and has operated his own sail loft in Oshkosh for 12 years.
