A sailmakers
journey to The Loft
Early Days
Monty Spindler began his career on the water
at six years of age, racing an Optimist in
Monty went on to race Lasers, winning the Chesapeake Singlehanded
Championships in 1974, '75, '76, and '77. In 1977 Monty was placed sixth in the
Laser World's in Cabo Frio, Brasil.
Monty owned an International 14, Snipe and Finn, and also crewed for acomplished helmsmen in the 14, Soling, Star, Tornado, J24
and various larger keelboat classes.
All-American Sailor
In 1979 Monty and Scott were again teammates competing
on the University circuit for St. Mary's College,
Both Scott and Monty were selected to the President's All-American Sailing
Team in 1979, St. Mary's first All-Americans. This began a tradition at St Marys which has consiantly been
in the top few colleges in the
In 1981 Monty was selected as a member of the
...he had discovered windsurfing...
Windsurfing with Winner
Ken Winner and Monty met while racing on the University circuit. Ken
sold his first windsurfer to Monty, which promptly broke in two! Ken's
animation motivated Monty to explore windsurfing.
Monty's facination with free sail rigs began in 1976.
While studying and making yacht sails, Monty began making windsurfing sails
in the basement of Ron Steele's home. The first sails were versions of the
original Windsurfer sail. Monty and Ron experimented...
Mylar on San Francisco Bay
In 1980 Monty arrived to the San Francisco Bay and worked for a few different
yacht sail lofts. His mentor in sail design was Kame
Richards of the Richards and VanHeeckeren loft in
Kame and Monty together made some of the earliest
Mylar windsurfing sails.
Later Monty joined Barbara Ockel at the Pacific Surf
Sails loft in
In 1981 Monty toured with the U.S. Olympic Team in the Finn, and in 1982 left
the team for windsurfing, to work with Horizon Sails, the importer of
Gaastra in the USA...
Blows Against the Empire
Bob Barton, the director of Horizon, was facinated by
the growing windsurfing market. He planned to find an alternative to Hoyle
Schweitzer's patent. Schweitzer asked a substantial fee issuing licences.
Barton believed that he could find an alternative and ask a lower fee. Consequently,
Monty worked with three different inventors; Michael Ready (a rig with a
spar along the foot), Stuart Jamison (a single boom which rotated
between upper and lower sails), and Newman Darby.
Newman Darby was in the middle of a patent controversy. He had published plans
for his individual free sail rig design in Popular Mechanics magazine in the
late sixties. Monty worked with Darby in 1982, making sails for the fantastic
rigs which Darby designed.
Yet the beauty of windsurfing is in its simplicity and the various alternatives
to the Schweitzer rig suffered from their complication. Monty left Horizon in
late 1982...
Monty then worked for Platt Jonson at Island
Windsurfing in
Ken Winner, Neil Pryde's premier World Cup racer was racing with
sails designed and built by Spindler at Island
Windsurfing. Mr Neil Pryde
arrived in
Spindler's first project at Pryde
was a racing quiver for Ken Winner. The result powered Winner to second
overall behind Naish in the World Cups of '84 &
'85.
Reefing Sails and Wing Masts
Winner also had Monty make early reefing sails for crossing ventures.
The fruit of this work was later taken to extremes by Arnaud deRosnay in his infamous channel crossings. Monty also
built early wing mast sails at the Maui Sails Loft.
Monty was an extremely productive designer for Pryde.
He was doing the bulk of the OEM work for board manufacturers
(Sailboard, Hifly, Tiga,
Windsurfer, Alpha, Sport Bittl, Windsurfing
Japan, among others).
He also designed some of the Neil Pryde collection
sails (Nova, Ultranova, RAF
Slalom).
A Time of Transition
1985 was a transition year. Leaving Pryde, Monty
entered into negotiations with F2, Gaastra and North. He decided after
considering the offers to go ahead with his own business.
But there was one last meeting in
The Cut-Away
At the end of 1985 Monty produced prototypes for North Sails. These protos included the controversial "cut away".
The protos were made at the Garda
North loft and were tested with positive results by Helgo
Lass and Cesare Cantigalli.
Monty's design position at North lasted for only some weeks as the situation
was complicated by the difficulties North windsurfing was experiencing at that
time. At this moment Mr Schutz
moved. Schutz bought what was the North/DeVries sailloft in
Advanced Rig Technology
A new concept was presented at the first ART product line meeting (Schutz, Pudenz, Richter and Spindler), the "cutaway". The group decided to
bring ART to the market with a splash.
The ART RadWing was the design which set the
windsurfing market abuzz. The RadWing was a winner in
magazine tests, and powered Monty to take the Johnnie Walker Trophy at
The trophy reads:
"THE JOHNNIE WALKER TROPHY FOR SAILING EFFICIENCY
Presented to Monty Spindler at the Johnnie Walker
International Speed Week 1986 for achieving 23.35 knots in 13 knots of wind=
+179.5% of wind speed."
The efficiency of the RadWind is significant
considering that the new World Speed Record of 46.82 kts
was set in winds of 40-50 knots.
The RadWing may have been the first production
windsurfing sail which had a free upper leech as its primary design
feature. Free upper leeches are now the norm for performance windsurfing sails.
The RadWing model was in production for five years, more than 25,000 were sold worldwide.
Spindler Design
In 1986 Monty set up his own sail loft on
Spindler Design prospered on
Speed Records
Three consecutive absolute World Sailing Speed Records were set with Spindler designed sails in the early 1990's, first with Pascal
Maka and then with Thierry Bielak.
In '92-'93 the top 3 positions on the RYA's absolute
world speed sailing record list were occupied with Spindler
designed windsurfing speed sails.
In '96 Monty left
ART, two years later ART closed.
In ´97 Monty rented space in a local Tarifa loft and
produced sails for Fernando Martinez and his effort to win the Raceboard World Championships in France ('97). Fernando
succeeded and won the World Championship.
In '98 Monty decided to "go for it" and The Loft was born. The
Loft was initially located in Casa dePorro at the
west end of Tarifa´s beaches. In 2001 The Loft moved
into a purpose-built 100m2 building
in Betis, on the mountain behind the big dune at Tarifa's west end.
The Loft had its first sails in series in 2000. The American Windsurfer
2000 sail tests on
The Loft has grown. The Loft enjoys distribution worldwide and is tested in most major windsurfing
magazines.
The Loft is a windsurfer's company. The Loft is dedicated to the development of
original quality windsurfing sail designs and we windsurf!
The Loft's top priority is windsurfing performance. The Loft's
philosophy is to maximize wind range while minimizing the number of sail lines
presented to the market... function over fashion, efficient simplicity.
Monty has been a
mentor for numerous sailmakers and designers, such as
Roland Luehrs (Neil Pryde
and Gaastra), Jasper Sanders (Neil Pryde and ART), Miro Picorilla (Speed Sails,
Rome), Glenn Macilwraithe (Neil Pryde),
Gildas Bouchet (Yucca
Sails, France), Claudio Zecchini (Seatex
Sails, Garda), and Robert Stroj
(ART/Pryde).
Collaborators
Over the years Monty has created many successful designs, working with many
leading windsurfers... Scott Steele, Ken Winner, Mike Waltze, Matt Schweitzer, Alex Aguera, Fred Haywood, Klaus Simmer, JP
Siret, Arnaud and Jenna deRosnay,
Dave Perks, Stan Sobczyk, Bruno Pouget, Stefano Pavcovich,
Johan Krauth, Sylvie Renart,
Cesare Cantigalli,
Maui Meyer, Klaus Baumann, Ronny Kiaulehn,
Fabian Pendle, Nathalie Siebel, Marcus
Steinlien, Thorkil
Kristensen, Eric Thieme,
Nathalie LeLievre, Christoph
Prin-Guenon, Guy Cribb,
Nik Baker, Eduardo Bellini, Paco Manchon, Ludo Jossin, Nev Colton
and Fernando Martinez have collaborated with Monty in windsurfing sail
design generation.