Seahorse Magazine // September 2026 – Written by Ivor Wilkins
The job of a Doyle Sails project manager working on superyachts and grand prix racing campaigns is a relentlessly fast-paced, multi-skilled juggling act…
The work of Doyle Sails’ small team of superyacht and grand prix project managers calls to mind those circus juggling acts where performers race about to keep dozens of plates spinning precariously atop slender rods. Their project management roles demand similar levels of concentration, constant attention to detail, instant responses to urgent requests and ability to remain calm under pressure.
They are constantly multitasking between new yachts under construction, servicing the requirements of existing large yachts and managing sail inventories across far-flung locations and time zones for a client base that includes some of the world’s most renowned sailors. Every Doyle sail is subject to the closest imaginable scrutiny.
Across the global Doyle Sails network, eight grand prix and superyacht project managers – five in Auckland, two in Newport, Rhode Island and one in Palma, Mallorca – are in perpetual motion.
Having just flown 36 hours to New Zealand after long days of inventory checks and maintenance of superyacht Aquarius’s racing sails at the Doyle Sails loft in Palma, project manager Chris Blunden, for example, is straight back to his desk in Auckland to focus on other superyacht build projects and sail programmes on his worksheet.
These include an 85m yacht in build at Royal Huisman, which will be the largest sailing sloop in the world, a 35m catamaran new build in Turkey and a 54msloop being built in Greece. He also looks after the sails for the sloop M5 (formerly Mirabella V), which sports an 89m mast.
‘I generally manage four projects at a time. At any one time, there are 20 or so sails at various stages of production in our system that I am looking after. The current schedule includes a 900m2 blade for M5.’
In March, Blunden was trimming the downwind mizzen staysail and gennaker aboard the 65m ketch Aquarius at the St Barth’s Bucket Regatta. Aquarius acquitted herself well, finishing third behind Hetairos* and Maximus in the Gazelles des Mers superyacht racing division. All three of the podium yachts were carrying Doyle Sails inventories. Other successes with Doyle Sails were Whisper, (1st, Les Mademoiselles des Mers division), Perseus* and Rosehearty (1st and 2nd in Les Grandes Dames des Mers), M5 and Gitana (1st and 3rd in L’Esprit de la Mers-2) and Symmetry (3rd L’Esprit de la Mers-1). The Doyle Sails brand was well represented throughout the 31-boat fleet.
Following the Bucket, Aquarius’s racing sails were shipped back to Palma where Blunden was on hand to supervise the service and maintenance checks on five massive downwind sails and a specialist racing jib. ‘It is a major undertaking involving a large group of people at the loft in Palma,’ he explains. ‘It takes up a lot of floor space and many people to unpack a 1,000m2 mizzen staysail, or a 2,000m2 gennaker and go over it centimetre by centimetre looking for signs of wear.
‘We attended to any maintenance requirements, did some small alterations and then packed everything away for storage until the next event, where everything comes out of the container to be ready to race again.’
At times the Palma facility looks like a racing pit lane, with multiple containers bearing the names of professional racing programmes: Leopard 3, Galateia, Hetairos, the two Aquarius ketches, superyachts, maxis, TP52s … The list goes on, with similar line-ups at Newport.
As soon as the sails have been checked and serviced and their hours of use logged, the containers ship out again, following the yachts from regatta to regatta on the international racing circuits.
Across the Doyle Sails network, the criteria for project managers to be assigned to an order come down to size and complexity. ‘The two main criteria are superyachts and grand prix yachts,’ says Alan Turner, who also works out of the Auckland facility. ‘For superyachts, the theoretical minimum size is 80ft, but mostly it applies to yachts around 120ft and bigger. Grand prix applies to the ultimate highperformance racing fleets like TP52s, maxis, SailGP, generally up to 100ft. Many of these are racing virtually full time.’
Turner’s current worklist includes 88 sails across 12 programmes, including 28 one-design SailGP jibs. ‘Much of what I do involves repeat orders, which really means you are constantly engaged. You basically never stop. ‘With the various race programmes, you are continuously dealing with recuts or maintenance, or working on what they are going to be ordering for upcoming regattas and campaigns.’
Turner’s current schedule does include one major new-build: the 69m ketch known as Project Zero, still under construction at the Vitters yard in Holland. The name relates to the ambitious goal of building a zero-fossil-fuel superyacht.
The sailing implications are significant in that the sailplan needs to deliver sufficient power to maintain decent cruising speeds, despite the drag of two large underwater hydro-generators charging the battery banks. It also means the yacht has to be under sail 80-85 per cent of the time at sea, much more than most superyachts.
The Project Zero sailplan is similar to Aquarius, which was built at Royal Huisman. They are both ketches with almost identical sail areas, but Project Zero’s rigs are shorter in order to pass under the Bridge of the Americas at Panama, while Aquarius has no such restriction.
‘The big thing about Project Zero was to make the sails as powerful as possible to cope with the hydro generators,’ says Turner. In addition, the sail-handling systems had to be designed to operate with the least possible electrical power consumption, while the requirement to sail rather than power through all weather demands ultimate durability.‘The sail technology is all the same as Aquarius, but with more fibre and a higher dpi content. With the additional hours, the sail replacement rate will be higher,’ says Turner.
Blunden’s connection with the Aquarius programme began with the earlier 56m ketch and continues with the 65m, both as Doyle Sails project manager and as a member of the yachts’ racing crew. Most of his work tends to be on new-builds. ‘I generally come into the picture once a build contract has been signed,’ he says. ‘Before that signature, however, a lot of concept work goes on.’
Highly sophisticated computer modelling lies at the heart of these projects, informing performance and load calculations from the keel to the masthead. ‘To model anything, you need a concept sailplan with baseline areas and specifications,’ Blunden explains. ‘Ideally, all the supplier groups – from the shipyard through to sailmakers, spar-makers, riggers, custom hardware, winches etc – are appointed at the beginning of the planning and design stage. That helps ensure the project runs smoothly, as all aspects can be fully integrated throughout the process,’ he notes.
The Doyle Sails sail designers will mostly lead that preliminary work, which can sometimes go on for years before a final build contract is on the table. A significant part of those multi-party design conversations is about ensuring that the integration of every aspect of the project takes full advantage of all Doyle Sails’ technology, but in particular Structured Luff technology.
Structured Luff sails can reduce rig loads in the order of 30 per cent, which allows a reduction in displacement and an improvement in righting moment, the benefits of which ripple across the entire supplier chain and into the handling of the yacht. As the overall design package evolves, it is crucial that all parties are looped into changes in displacement, rig geometries, loads, deck layouts, hardware decisions, sail areas. Behind the scenes, the project managers are often involved in chasing these details and ensuring that the relevant information flows to all the parties in a timely way.
‘We also sometimes get involved in the quoting process,’ adds Blunden, ‘just in the sense of making sure that we can actually produce what is being sold.’
With a great deal of custom hardware involved, there is constant cross-party communication. ‘We work very closely with the major spar-makers, for example,’ Blunden continues. ‘They are good about sharing designs with us before they start machining parts, so we can figure out how they will integrate with the sail. We might suggest a few adjustments and redraw it. That way you don’t have a surprise fitting landing on your desk with no idea how we are supposed to make it work.
‘Structured Luff is still a relatively new technology to some suppliers, who might struggle to get their heads around how much of the load is being carried by the luff of the headsail – which has a huge bearing on what they need to produce. ‘For example, it is very important that the connections between the sail and the rig are designed appropriately for the loads. It is not necessarily in our remit to forecast those things, but after doing multiple projects, the knowledge we can share is critical, so we pass that information on in a collaborative way.’
Occasionally, the sail designers also consult the project managers about sail construction details. ‘When it comes to the practicalities and finer details of actually building the sail, we might be called upon to step in with suggestions,’ Turner adds.
Eventually, all the design packages are settled and a build contract is signed. At this point, the sailmakers finalise their planning and scheduling details, but hold off on actually building sails. ‘We only sign off on the final sail designs and start building sails once the boatyard has surveyed the completed hull and deck structures to confirm that what they have built precisely matches the plans, including the chainplate positions and hardware locations,’ says Turner.
As experienced sailmakers, the project managers share a common language and knowledge with their colleagues on the loft floor as they oversee the construction of the inventory and ensure scheduling milestones are met. ‘When it comes to building the sails, our job is to have all the information the sailmakers need, when they need it. Likewise with all the hardware and parts, they have to be on hand exactly when they are required to be incorporated into the construction process,’ says Turner. ‘And then, most importantly, when the sail is delivered halfway around the world, whoever opens the bag at the other end needs to see exactly what they are expecting to see. No surprises.’
Extrapolate that out across the entire project and it amounts to a highly complex organisational ecosystem, spread across multiple locations, specialist skills and time zones, every part of it working to the highest levels of precision and accuracy, to meet strict milestones and deadlines. ‘If just one part of it is delayed, or changes, it ripples all the way through the system,’ says Blunden.
Think about those spinning plates crashing down one by one. The fine line between success and disaster depends on a high degree of expertise, trust and constant communication between all parties.
It is all part of being a global multi-disciplinary team working towards a shared objective to bring a highly sophisticated and technically challenging objective to fruition in a way that will live up to – or preferably exceed – the client’s most demanding expectations.
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