The people behind Zoom Sails
Founder/Director Phil Auger is from New Zealand. While studying business and IT he was an active racing sailor and worked part time at the local North Sails affiliated sail loft in central New Zealand. After finishing studying, part time turned into a full time sail making job. In 2002 he then moved into his own purpose built small production sail loft where he stayed for 10 years making between 100 to 150 racing and cruising sails per year. The racing sails made during this period won many national and regional class titles in New Zealand.
2012-16 he spent cruising the South Pacific, North Pacific and then SE Asia with his wife Astrid where they are currently based. This time spent long distance cruising gave an even better knowledge of the requirements for a good cruising sail. Currently Phil lives in SE Asia and travels regularly to Sri-Lanka to work with the sail loft production crew. |
Roaming Representative and Designer Jamie Gilford is from the US. He started sailmaking in 1985 at Halsey Sailmakers, one of the top lofts in USA at the time. In 1988 he became upwind sail designer and stayed in this position until 1994, after which he did consulting work for a number of lofts in the US.
Jamie worked with many high profile racing campaigns, including America 3 (Americas Cup), Matador 1&2 (Maxi), Rothmans, Fortuna, Dolphin and Youth (Whitbread). Since 2008 Jame has been cruising the world with his family on board SV Totem - their Stevens 47. They have completed a circumnavigation and logged over 50,000 miles. |