Water, water everywhere- just not down your pants

by Colin Patterson on 15 Aug 2007 The legendary New Zealand brand Line 7 is about to launch its new range of wet weather gear. Line 7 was established in 1963 and quickly became the clothing of choice for many of the world’s top sailors. This year the brand is back with an updated, intelligently designed range for everyone from entry level sailors to the world’s best. Line 7’s Pat Langley spoke about the most advanced, high performance range from the iconic brand to date.

‘We’ve got product that we’re confident will compete against the best’ he said after explaining that they spent an intensive 12 month period developing and refining the new range.

‘The new range is designed by sailors, for sailors.’

‘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.’

After listening carefully to the feedback, the design team set about building a range that reflects Line 7’s strong sailing heritage but which also incorporated the latest technologies. The gear has all the strength, durability and comfort which people have come to expect from Line 7 with a number of smart new design features which sailors will appreciate.

‘We’ve put a lot of thought into our pockets. You’ll see we’ve got pockets in strategic locations to make sure that you’ve got a place to put all your safety equipment and it’s easily accessible. We’ve moved into the age of iPods, so we’ve got iPod pockets throughout our range, and also mobile phone pockets.’

‘All the little features, especially around the face and neck closures and hood structures and just the actual fit of the garment, that seems to be the things that most people are giving us the positive feedback on.’

Langley expects that it’s the high degree of attention to detail which will set the brand apart from its competitors.

‘Sailors and mariners have spent a lot of time in the gear and that will be the thing that will set us apart to the competition because sailors will go ‘Jeez that’s a really good idea.’ The difference will be noticeable.’

Line 7 gear has been the clothing of choice for some of the best racing crews on the planet. They have been involved with the America’s Cup since 1977 when they outfitted Captain Ted Turner and the winning crew of Courageous. Their gear has been worn aboard America’s Cup winners Freedom (1980), Australia 2 (1983), Stars and Stripes (1987), Team New Zealand (1995) and Team New Zealand (2000). Line 7’s involvement with Team New Zealand dates back to 1987 and from 1995 the company has been the official clothing supplier to the team.

‘We are the exclusive clothing supplier to Emirates Team New Zealand. We provide them with all their race gear as well as all the supporter merchandise…Essentially we provided all the race clothing for the team throughout the campaign.’

Line 7 has been worn by Peter Blake, Grant Dalton, Bruce Kendall and by crews in the Admiral’s Cup, One Top Cup, Volvo Ocean Race, Sydney to Hobart, Round the World Yacht Races and Olympic Games.

Langley stresses that it is the years of designing for elite levels of competition and harsh conditions which have helped the company build its most advanced range to date.

‘Our R & D over all the years of supplying Team New Zealand has played quite a big part in it. Because all the knowledge that we’ve developed over the last ten years of making products for those guys has certainly come through in bits and pieces of this range. And that’s just our designers having exposure to that environment.’

He says that the other thing that makes Line 7 so attractive to local mariners is that the New Zealand company is specifically designing clothing for the tough southern waters, as opposed to the more refined boating found in some parts of the Mediterranean.

‘We’ve got to cater for guys who are sailing down in the Roaring 40s and beating your way into Hobart, it’s sometimes a different kettle of fish (than sailing in Europe).’

‘We’re a Southern Hemisphere brand and we’re building garments for Southern Hemisphere conditions. (The gear has) got that Southern Hemisphere personality about it.’

Something of the rugged quality of the southern waters is reflected in the tough, funny, no nonsense advertising campaign that Line 7 will soon launch to promote the new wet weather gear. Slogans include ‘water, water everywhere: just not down your pants.'

Line 7 has simplified its rating system so you can easily choose a garment with an appropriate level of protection. Their top of the line jacket and trousers for the hardest conditions is called their Ocean Range. This features a fully breathable, windproof and waterproof three layer AquaTec3 fabric and it’s all designed to be lighter weight than is standard.

The jacket has some really nice attention to detail: the fluorescent hood has three adjustment points to ensure a secure fit and maximise waterproofness. There’s a panel of stretch fabric at the base of the hood to allow ease of movement (nothing worse than turning your head and having your hood remain stiffly pointing forward).

The jacket collar is lined with a delicious layer of micro fleece for warmth and comfort and there’s an ergonomically designed stretch fabric face guard for when the weather turns foul. The face guard is also fleece lined so no more feeling you’re giving mouth to mouth to a wet garbage bag.

Then there’s the Offshore Range which Langley expects will be extremely popular due to its very reasonable price and quality. The two layer AquaTec2 fabric jacket costs $450 with the trousers at $260, so that’s a full set of wet weather gear for just over $700.

‘That’s quite good for people who get a gig to do a delivery, and they might like ocean racing but they’re not sure how much they will be doing. They don’t really want to fork out two grand to do it, but they can afford $700.’

The next level is a range of Inshore products, and this is followed by an entry level product for beginners called the Gulf range. In case you’re wondering it’s named after New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf.

And to clear up another mystery about names: Line 7’s name is derived from an ancient fortune teller’s tale. According to palmists a long ‘line seven’, or the seventh line on the hand, was considered to be extremely lucky.

Contact details
Address : Unit 2, 3 Mentmore Ave, Rosebery
City : Sydney
State : NSW
Postcode : 2018
Country : Australia
Phone : 61 2 9697 9100
Fax : 61 2 9697 9199


http://www.line7.com