Rawle Barrow started repairing sails in the garage of his Diego Martin home as a post-retirement hobby.
Six years later his son, Kent, has advanced the process two steps beyond the family garage: he's moved the business into a loft at Powerboats Mutual Facilities Ltd., Chaguaramas, and he's acquired the software to design sails on computer.
Kent, 23, a sail consultant and canvas manufacturer, with Barrow Sail Loft, acquired $20,000 worth of computer equipment and sail-making software which is manufactured by Autometrix in California. Before acquiring the computer, Kent said he had to pay US $80 to an outside company for a design profile.
The elder Barrow, a retired director of Industrial Gases Ltd. at Savonetta, represented Trinidad and Tobago at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He owns a 30-foot sloop, Petite Careme.
He's being trained in the skill of computer aided design (CAD) by Canadian consultant Sandy Goodall, 45. Goodall apprenticed under Danish Olympian sailor Paul Elvstrom for 18 years.
"You put in the dimensions of the sail, then you indicate how many pieces of cloth to divide the sail into. The computer calculates what each piece should have to get the shape you want," Goodall explained.
The computer has reduced the three-to-four-hour long process to about 20 minutes, Kent said.
"This will be more accurate, which will translate into more quality," Goodall said, "and not as much wasted material."
The Canadian was brought to Trinidad with the help of David Cabral, the local representative for Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO), a non-profit organization which provides Canadian expertise for small and medium businesses such as Barrow Sails Loft.
Last year Kent also invested in a US $38,000 long-arm sewing machine which was ordered from a Swiss company to make the heavy sails for boats as long as 100 feet.
"We did this to attend to the growing yachting market," said Kent, whose office window looks out on Crews Inn Marina and Boatyard. "The size of boat that Crews Inn has means to me that the bigger boats require bigger machinery, hence our investment."
Since its investment, Kent said the company gets about 80 percent of the larger boats coming into Trinidad's boatyards for repairs. "The investment is paying off," Kent said.
He said captains were interested in the workmanship and credibility of the business and those are big sales factors.
One of its clients was Anthony Agard, captain of the schooner Carmella, which needed its 60-foot high and 50-foot wide sail repaired.
"We were smiling from ear to ear because it would have taken us four days without the computer and machine. We felt we had made the right decision," he said.