It’s a typical humid, southern Chesapeake Bay summer day when I show up on the doorstep of Latell & Ailsworth Sailmakers in the one-stoplight, one-lane-roadway, rural tidewater town of Deltaville, Virginia. I’m late getting here to work on a new jib for my 29-foot, Bill Tripp-designed sloop, Teal. Loft owner and founder Jerry Latell doesn’t mind my tardiness or my do-it-yourself nature. He welcomes me with a big hug and puts me to work right away bringing my new sail to life.
I had met Latell a few times while passing through on various boats. Later, after I’d purchased Teal and was working on her, I ran into him again and regaled him with stories of my latest engineless misadventures from Maine to Maryland. He rolled his eyes at my antics after taking one look at my roller furler and the pathetic, much-too-small jib I’d gotten off a Compac-25.
When he learned that I’d acquired my new main from an online sail loft (see “Made to Measure,” October/November 2021), he was appalled and immediately called me a sellout.
