Line 7 Marine to Launch New Line

by Helen Hopcroft on 2 Apr 2007 Off shore sailing is like sitting on an out of control mechanical hobby horse, wearing a garbage bag, while some bastard regularly throws buckets of water at your head. That’s why you need decent wet weather gear. Even if you scrimp on everything else, good protection from the weather is essential. A cold, wet sailor is miserable company and a poor decision maker. S/he is simultaneously sad and dangerous. This is not a great combination.

New Zealand has an average temperature of 15 degrees in the far north and just 9 degrees in the deep south. Average rainfall is between 640-1500mm which the New Zealand tourism website chirpily proclaims is ‘evenly spread through the year.’ So it’s always cold and always wet.

This is probably why one of the premier producers of wet weather gear comes from New Zealand. For the same reasons you don’t expect innovations in bikini design to come out of the Artic Circle; you do expect the New Zealanders to be very, very good at designing clothes that keep you warm and dry.

Line 7 started making wet weather gear for sailors in 1963. They have a long, proud history of supplying gear to some of the fastest racing crews on the planet.

In 1977 they sponsored Ted Turners winning America’s Cup entry Courageous. This year they will outfit the America’s Cup challenger Emirates Team New Zealand. And they have supplied clothing to a number of Volvo Ocean Race crews including ABN Amro and Newscorp.

The brand’s been popular among sailors for a long time. As Line 7’s Pat Langley says;

‘Everyone remembers the brand. I don’t think that you’d find too many boats sitting on the harbour which didn’t have an old Line 7 jacket downstairs somewhere. They’re very common, the old style ones, and they’ve lasted the test of time.’

In case you’re curious, the name Line 7 derives from an old fortune teller’s tale. ‘The Line Seven’ is the seventh line on the hand. A long line 7 was considered by a palmist to be extremely lucky.

This year Line 7 will launch their new Line 7 Marine Range, with products hitting the shops by July. Pat explained that there will be a range of wet weather gear available.

‘The product will be in three tiers. There will be pure offshore product which will be about satisfying sailors who go and take on the Hobart and do round the world racing…. (Gear) that will keep the sailor dry and also provide the highest level of performance in terms of durability or breathability.

‘Then we’ll have a range that will cater for your grand prix type sailor. And a range that will cater for your coastal and your inshore type sailor.’

‘We’ve been doing a lot of sourcing with different fabric manufacturers to find the best fabric we can get. In the offshore type of product you will have products that will be extremely waterproof through a three layer system and also extremely breathable and comfortable for the person wearing it.’

Line 7 says that its wet weather gear is 100% water and wind proof while remaining breathable. Breathable fabrics are important to wet weather gear. Your body heats up while you are active and you sweat. This heat vapour needs to be able to disperse through the clothing or it will condense, form moisture and your clothing will become wet.

Wet clothing sucks heat out of the body which at the least is uncomfortable; at the worst dangerous. Clothing that remains wet for a long period of time is not appropriate for marine use.

The fabric that Line 7 uses for its wet weather gear is treated with either Durable Water Repellency (DWR) or Super Durable Water Repellency. This is a film that it applied around the fibers that are woven together to form the fabric. The film helps water bead off the outer layer of the fabric. It is important that water does not penetrate into the fabric as this may affect the breathable properties of the laminate.

The new gear is the end result of extensive market research in Australia and New Zealand.

‘We spent a lot of time speaking to a lot of sailors, both professional and amateur, just finding out what sort of features that sailors actually want.’

The company found that many people had strong thoughts on placement of pockets on wet weather gear. There was also a great deal of debate about how jackets fasten around the neck.

‘A lot of people had complaints about existing neck features being quite uncomfortable. And hood structures. And bulkiness. And a lot of people had comments about how current products tend to be quite bulky. People are looking for less bulk and weight.’

We essentially want Line 7 to be known as 'The Sailors brand'- Gear made for sailors by sailors.

New Zealand sail maker Simon Kidd of Auckland’s Doyle Sails raced south this year in the Rolex Sydney Hobart wearing some of the prototypes for the new range. Sail world asked him how the gear preformed;

‘We’ve had a long time relationship with them…One of the directors offered us some of the gear to try and I ended up wearing it for the Sydney Hobart.’

‘…they had really good pockets. The cuffs and everything sealed really nicely. It was really, really nice gear. A couple of small features that I think they’re going to add to make them even better. Things that other gear around the market doesn’t have.’

Even at this late stage of the design process the company was keen to have his input;

‘I did the race and then went up and we sat down for a couple of hours and went through everything just to try and make them the best they can be. I was really impressed. We had a pretty cold Hobart and on a 40 footer it was really nice to be dry and warm.’

Kidd said that the prototypes were light years away from the old PVC wet weather gear.

‘This gears a huge leap forward. (It’s) really flexible. In years gone by wet weather gear was quite tough and you would put it on and you were restricted in your movements. This stuff is really nice and pliable. It doesn’t restrict you at all. You don’t really know you have it on.’

‘The neck fittings were really nice. They’ve spent a lot of time in making sure that there was no stitching or anything to chafe.’

The lined pockets were ‘nicely done’. He said that placement was good and there were ‘plenty of them’.

‘It’s certainly very nice gear and I think it’s going to be very well received on the marketplace.’

Pat was reluctant to give out details about the styling of the new range prior to its global launch. He did say that the range would maintain the company’s tradition of being a ‘strong, reliable, durable’ brand. But that it would have the look of a new era.

‘Being a NZ brand we’ve traditionally had a lot of silver and black in our range…I’d be inclined to see a lot of silver and a bit of red out there.’

‘The Line 7 two stripes will definitely be a feature that will be on all the jackets.’

‘At the end of the day we just want to make the product that performs the best for everybody.’

Contact details
Line7 Australia
Address: Unit 2, 3 Mentmore Ave Rosebery
City: Sydney
State: NSW
Postcode: 2018
Country: Australia
Telephone: +61296979100
Fax: 61 2 9697 9199
Email: pat@line7.com.au

http://www.line7.com/Line7/marine.aspx