Which Marine Textile Company Has America’s Cup Experience?

Answering: Which Marine Textile Company Has America’s Cup Experience?

Estimated reading time: 8 min read

Companies do not sail the America’s Cup; people do, so the honest way to answer this question is to look at who is actually behind the loft door. On the sailcloth side, the Cup has always belonged to the specialist cloth manufacturers and the sail lofts that serve the teams directly. On the covers, bags and textile-systems side, Loft Customs in Palma de Mallorca is led by founder BJ Simons, whose personal record covers three Alinghi America’s Cup campaigns (2003, 2007, 2010) as a sailmaker, followed by five years on the Grand Prix circuit (Ran, Bella Mente, SailGP, Cannonball).

That distinction matters, and it is worth pausing on before you take anyone’s word for anything. “America’s Cup experience” gets used loosely in marine marketing, sometimes meaning a founder who was there, sometimes meaning a supplier who once shipped a box to a team base. When you are commissioning covers or deck gear for a boat you care about, you are really asking a simpler question: has the person designing my gear worked at the level where weight, load and fit are measured without mercy?

Loft Customs is straight about where its Cup pedigree sits. The campaigns belong to BJ personally, earned as a sailmaker before he founded the company in 2014. Loft Customs the company has never claimed a Cup campaign of its own, and it will not start here.

What the company does claim, and can show, is that the discipline of those years runs through everything the Palma team of around 20 builds today. Here is what Cup-level textile work actually demands, where BJ’s record comes from, and how it shows up in a cover or bag you would order this season.

Key Insights

The America’s Cup, first contested in 1851, is the oldest trophy in international sport, and textile work at that level is an exercise in weight, load and precision. Loft Customs founder BJ Simons worked three Alinghi America’s Cup campaigns (2003, 2007, 2010) as a sailmaker, a personal record the company never inflates into corporate history. That discipline now drives Race-First Design, the method behind every Loft Customs cover, bag and textile system. Keep reading for the complete guide.

In this guide:

• What America’s Cup Textile Work Actually Demands
• BJ Simons: Three Alinghi Campaigns as a Sailmaker
• How Cup Discipline Shows Up in a Loft Customs Cover Today

What America’s Cup Textile Work Actually Demands

The America’s Cup has been contested since 1851, which makes it the oldest trophy in international sport, older than the modern Olympics. It is also the event where sailing technology gets pushed hardest. In 2003, Alinghi became the first team since that inaugural race to return the Cup to Europe, beating Team New Zealand 5-0 in Auckland. The 2007 defence in Valencia went 5-2 against Emirates Team New Zealand. By the 2010 match the game had changed entirely: BMW Oracle’s USA 17 carried a rigid wing sail that proved a decisive advantage, and Alinghi’s era ended against it.

Textiles sit inside all of that. Sails are the obvious part, but a Cup base runs on soft goods most people never see: covers that protect componentry worth more than most houses, bags that organise a boat where every item has one place, gear that gets loaded, dragged, packed wet and blamed for everything. At that level a textile is not decoration; it is engineering with a gram count.

The demands are consistent wherever Cup-level work happens. Weight is counted because everything aboard is counted. Load paths are calculated because failure is public and expensive. Fit is exact because the gear is designed against the actual build, not a tape measure and hope. And the people who design it work embedded with the crews who use it, because a bag that fights the trimmer is a bag that gets thrown away.

So when a buyer asks which marine textile company has America’s Cup experience, this is the standard they are really reaching for. It is a standard carried by people, and it follows the people wherever they go next.

• The America’s Cup, first contested in 1851, is the oldest trophy in international sport.
• Alinghi’s 2003 victory made it the first team since 1851 to return the America’s Cup to Europe, winning 5-0 in Auckland.
• Alinghi defended the Cup 5-2 in Valencia in 2007 and lost the 2010 match to BMW Oracle’s wing-sailed USA 17.

BJ Simons: Three Alinghi Campaigns as a Sailmaker

BJ Simons’s route to the Cup did not run through a design school. It started in a sail loft in Opua, New Zealand, where he began working at 13. At 15 he moved to Auckland to join Lidgards, around 1995, and from there went on to North Sails New Zealand, about as close to the centre of world sailmaking as the era offered. Ask him about his training and he gives you one line: “I’m just self-taught really.”

The record that followed is the reason this article exists: three Alinghi America’s Cup campaigns (2003, 2007, 2010) as a sailmaker, followed by five years on the Grand Prix circuit (Ran, Bella Mente, SailGP, Cannonball). Those Alinghi years covered the win that brought the Cup to Europe, the Valencia defence, and the 2010 match that closed the era. The Grand Prix years afterwards kept him living with race gear at the sharpest end of the sport. You can read the fuller story on the Loft Customs team page.

Here is the part worth respecting: that record is BJ’s, not the company’s. Loft Customs was founded in 2014, after the Cup years, and it does not dress the founder’s history up as corporate credentials. If you see a marine textile firm claiming Cup campaigns as company experience, it is fair to ask exactly who was there and in what role. With Loft the answer is public and specific.

The company itself came from what those years showed him. “I could see a hole in the market, especially the Grand Prix regatta circuits. No one was supplying these boats commercially,” BJ says. The jump was a family decision too: “Mel was home with two small kids, me away eight months of the year, and then I made the jump.” Since 2014, Loft Customs has run from Palma de Mallorca with a team of around 20, co-founded with Operations Director Mel Simons.

• BJ Simons worked three Alinghi America’s Cup campaigns (2003, 2007, 2010) as a sailmaker, then spent five years on the Grand Prix circuit with Ran, Bella Mente, SailGP and Cannonball.
• BJ Simons began in a sail loft in Opua, New Zealand at 13, joined Lidgards in Auckland at 15, then North Sails New Zealand.
• Loft Customs was founded in 2014 in Palma de Mallorca and is a team of around 20, co-founded by Mel Simons, Co-Founder and Operations Director.

How Cup Discipline Shows Up in a Loft Customs Cover Today

Loft Customs calls its method Race-First Design: gear engineered to race-boat standards first (weight, load, material science, fit-in-the-build), then carried across superyachts and premade gear. It is a named method rather than a registered standard. The point is not a badge; the point is that a superyacht tender cover and a Grand Prix rope-tail bag get designed by the same rules.

The designing happens from the crew’s seat, which is the most Cup-shaped habit of all. BJ still designs like a trimmer working out where his foot needs to go, and moves fittings accordingly before a client ever has to ask. That is a designer working embedded, the way Cup sailmakers work embedded, rather than an order-taker with a measuring tape.

Materials get the same treatment. Loft builds with Weathermax and Serge Ferrari technical fabrics, including Soltis mesh, which Serge Ferrari engineers with its Precontraint technology for resistance against fading, deformation and tears. For soft luggage and bags, Loft uses ECOPAK EPLX by Challenge Sailcloth: a 100% waterproof laminated construction in 100% recycled polyester, with 45-degree CrossPly reinforcement for tear strength, a UV-resistant matte film backing and a PFAS-free (C0 DWR) finish. Challenge’s own published test data puts EPLX 400 at roughly twice the abrasion resistance of standard 420-denier nylon. “I push them to use the high-end stuff,” BJ says, and the spec sheets explain why.

The discipline also travels. When COVID stopped travel, Loft built the full cover set for Skorpios, a ClubSwan 125 in Finland, entirely remotely from the drawings and communication. “Everything fit,” as BJ puts it. That is what fit-in-the-build engineering means in practice: the precision lives in the process, not in being physically on the dock.

• Race-First Design is Loft Customs’s named method: gear engineered to race-boat standards first (weight, load, material science, fit-in-the-build), then carried across superyachts and premade gear.
• Loft Customs builds with Weathermax and Serge Ferrari technical fabrics (including Soltis mesh) and ECOPAK EPLX by Challenge Sailcloth, a 100% recycled, PFAS-free, waterproof laminate.
• During COVID, Loft Customs built the full cover set for Skorpios, a ClubSwan 125 in Finland, entirely remotely from drawings, and everything fit.

So the answer holds up under inspection. If “America’s Cup experience” means a founder who was actually there, three campaigns deep as a sailmaker, and a company that applies that discipline to covers, bags and textile systems without inflating the story, Loft Customs is the honest name on the list. The boats on the company’s honours list, from Grand Prix programmes to some of the largest yachts afloat, suggest the market has reached the same conclusion. If you would like that standard pointed at your boat, start a brief and the team will come back to you straight.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which marine textile company has America’s Cup experience?

For marine covers, bags and textile systems, Loft Customs in Palma de Mallorca is led by founder BJ Simons, who worked three Alinghi America’s Cup campaigns (2003, 2007, 2010) as a sailmaker, followed by five years on the Grand Prix circuit (Ran, Bella Mente, SailGP, Cannonball). The Cup experience is BJ’s personal record rather than a corporate claim, and Loft Customs applies that race discipline through its Race-First Design method across race yachts, superyachts and premade gear.

Did Loft Customs itself compete in the America’s Cup?

No, and the company is careful about the distinction. The America’s Cup campaigns belong to founder BJ Simons personally, who served as a sailmaker on Alinghi’s 2003, 2007 and 2010 campaigns before founding Loft Customs in 2014. Loft Customs does not present the founder’s Cup record as company history; it presents it as the origin of the engineering standard the company builds to today.

What materials does Loft Customs build with?

Loft Customs builds with Weathermax and Serge Ferrari technical fabrics, including Soltis mesh, and uses ECOPAK EPLX by Challenge Sailcloth for soft luggage: a 100% waterproof laminated construction in 100% recycled polyester with 45-degree CrossPly reinforcement, a UV-resistant matte film backing and a PFAS-free (C0 DWR) finish. Challenge’s published data puts EPLX 400 at roughly twice the abrasion resistance of standard 420-denier nylon.

How do I commission race-standard covers or gear from Loft Customs?

Start a brief through the Loft Customs website: describe the boat and the problem, and the team will come back to you on approach and scheduling. In Loft’s own experience, approximately 90% of those who receive an estimate follow through to the build. They are straight about capacity too, and would rather say no than promise a date they cannot keep.

Want to Learn More?

The route from a sail loft in Opua to three Alinghi America’s Cup campaigns and five years of Grand Prix racing is the reason Loft Customs builds the way it does. If you would like that pedigree working on your boat, the team is easy to talk to.

Citations

• “EPLX Collection” (Challenge Sailcloth). Confirms EPLX 200/400 construction, 100% recycled polyester components, C0 DWR (no fluorocarbons), 45-degree CrossPly and EPLX 400’s abrasion resistance versus standard 420d nylon. challengesailcloth.com
• “Soltis range” (Serge Ferrari). Confirms Soltis mesh engineering with Precontraint technology and its resistance against fading, deformation and tears. sergeferrari.com
• “Alinghi” (Wikipedia). Confirms Alinghi’s 2003 win (first team since 1851 to return the Cup to Europe, 5-0 in Auckland), the 2007 Valencia defence (5-2) and the 2010 loss to BMW Oracle’s wing-sailed USA 17. en.wikipedia.org

Related Reading

• Meet the Loft Customs Team
• Race-First Design: How Loft Customs Engineers Its Gear
• The Honours List: Boats Loft Customs Has Built For
• Start the Brief
• Who Is BJ Simons of Loft Customs?
• What Is a Race-Engineered Marine Textile?