North SeaSails

North Sea Sails works from the Ibex Sail Loft on Woodrolfe Road, a short walk from Tollesbury's saltings and marina. Steve Hall has run the loft since 2000, continuing a trade that traces back to Gayle Heard's cotton and flax sailmaking here in the 1950s and 1960s. Hall cuts and stitches sails for Thames sailing barges and East Coast smacks and bawleys, working with domestic sewing machines rather than laser-cutting equipment, and finishing seams by hand with needle and palm. The loft also handles rope work and headsail furling gear for classic and historic boat owners across Britain and continental Europe. Orders are made to the measurements of each individual hull rather than to a standard pattern. The building sits among the moorings that line the Woodrolfe Road hard, overlooking the Tollesbury Fleet.