ABOUT THE LOFT

The UK Doyle loft first opened for business in 1997 and today has an impressive, modern 1000 sqm facility in Southampton, UK. The team provide sails for Grand Prix racing yachts, club racing teams, one design classes and coastal cruisers. Doyle is also the leading sail provider for many of the most impressive Superyachts in the world.

The raised loft floor is about the size of four tennis courts and has five sewing pits which provides the capacity for work on larger sails or taking on time-dependent projects without interfering with our planned production and sail servicing. Sailing legends Adrian Stead, Brian Thompson and Peter Greenhalgh provide customers with the highest level of sails support for Grand Prix yachts, Superyachts and a wide range of inshore and offshore yachts..

The UK team works very closely with our partner loft in New Zealand, suppliers of award winning Stratis sail membranes.

Please come and visit us to view the facilities and talk to us about your sails.

Adrian Stead has a wealth of Grand Prix racing experience and is a 14 times World Champion with teams such as RAN, Bella Mente, Mascalzone Latino and Quantum Racing. The Two-time Olympian and America’s Cup sailor has also got an Admirals’ Cup win, double Rolex Fastnet Race win and many other offshore race wins to his credit.

Brian Thompson is another well recognised British yachtsman making it into the history books by becoming the first (and only, so far) Briton to break the round the world sailing record twice. He was also the first to sail round the world non-stop four times! Brian is a vastly experienced and successful offshore sailor and was part of the Volvo Ocean Race winning team with Mike Sanderson’s ABN AMRO One crew in 2005/06. Brian has sailed a great many short-handed boats including Minis, Class 40s and IMOCA 60s, in which he completed the 2008 Vendee Globe. Lately he has focused on large multihulls, especially MOD70s and 100ft+ multi-hulls.

Peter Greenhalgh has a long list of success stories across a number of classes in sailing – starting out young with his pro sailing siblings, Robert and Libby Greenhalgh, Peter built experience in 420s, International 14s, small sports boats (Melges, J80s) and took part in three 49er Olympic campaigns. Peter was an early mover into the Extreme Sailing Series and has been involved in that circuit for over 10 years. He holds a unique record in that circuit winning four overall titles including the first year in 2007 and right up to 2018 finishing second and never missing the podium. Peter’s skills run across sailing other grand prix racing boats including Mini Maxi 72s Fast40+, TP52s, D35s to MOD70s.