North Cloth joins Katrina effort

by Sail-World Cruising on 12 Jul 2006 New Orleans and the devastating Katrina may have faded from the everyday news, but it will take many months yet until the roofs of the important older building of the area can be re-roofed, and in the meantime rain and wind continue relentlessly to complete the job started by Katrina. This is where North Cloth has come to the rescue.

Tom Davis, President of North Cloth explained: 'Several months ago I happened to hear a representative of the National Historic Preservation Trust interviewed on radio during which he described a volunteer project to limit further damage to important older buildings which had been damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The volunteers are covering hard-material roofs throughout the devastated zone.'

This gave Davis an idea. 'An inevitable result of manufacturing many miles of sailcloth is a small percentage of cloth that sits unsold. These 'distressed' rolls are often short end pieces a few metres long left over from inspection/slitting, the 'D' grade cloth produced when weaving or laminating processes start up or finish, imperfections when something goes awry in manufacture (these incidents hopefully kept to a minimum), or a combination of all these factors. One hopes to eventually find a use for this material, especially when the cloth is a heavy, costly style – but opportunities are typically pretty scarce.'

Davis contacted the organisation, and now North Cloth has been working to put their cloth to work in what is a unique and gratifying way.

It will be months or years before new slate, metal, or ceramic roofing will be installed on numerous churches, schools and other important old buildings. Over the past half year North Cloth has donated and shipped a significant amount of heavy sailcloth to the Tarps New Orleans organization which to date has completed temporary roofing using North Sails cloth and traditional 'blue tarp' on over 140 buildings with many more to go.

Sail-World Cruising would like to pay a tribute to North Cloth for this worthwhile civic minded effort. For more information or to make a donation please call 225/336-5555 or email tarpsnola@yahoo.com. For more information about North Cloth, go to their website

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