“If you are looking for someone to help up your sailing game Chris is your man. With his years of experience making and developing fast sails for a huge variety of boats he has a unique understanding of what make a boat go fast. Through our work together at North Sails I have seen Chris’s people skills in action and am sure that some time with him will result in you and your team taking a strong step forward as a group and on the racecourse.”
Ken Read, President, North Sails
Chris Snow
I think you could say I am a “veteran” of the sailing and sailmaking industry. I started making sails while still in college working for a company called Ulmer Sails in Annapolis. I worked for them after I graduated and eventually my father and I bought the business. During this time I learned to make sails the old fashioned way, by hand. I was taken under the wing of the head of Ulmer Sails, Butch Ulmer who taught me a huge amount about big boat and offshore sailing. I sailed the SORC and most of the larger East Coast offshore races, (Bermuda, Halifax, etc.). Also by trial and error, I learned how sails really worked by making and recutting them myself.
In Annapolis, my girlfriend was in the Navy, in fact she was teaching leadership at the Naval Academy. We met through sailing Snipes. She was just finishing an Olympic campaign in the 470 and was soon to be transferred to San Diego. I ended up following her to San Diego, selling our business to another licensee (now UK Sails) and getting a job selling sails at North Sails San Diego. North Sails was started in San Diego by Lowell North back in 1957. At that time the company was very much under his influence.
In San Diego, my job was to sell big boat sails but my heart was in sailing small boats. Lucky for me, Vince Brun recognized this and quickly gave me a chance to work with him selling One Design sails. Vince was and is a great sailor and mentor. He taught all of us that worked for North One Design about how to make boats sail faster and to never stop trying to improve. Over the years North One Design grew to be by far the most dominant small boat sailmaker in the world. No one came close.
I worked for North for 29 years eventually running the One Design operation for North America. Along the way I was able to work on developing sailing for many different types of boats from Optimists to Etchells and beyond. I won many National and North American championships and competed at a high level in many World Championships as well, both as skipper and crew. I was able to sail all over the world and work with many different types of customers from sailors in their Olympic campaigns to those that simply wanted to improve their skills and move up in the local beer can series’.
I still live in San Diego and my wife Mary is getting back into sailing. We have two sons, one an officer in the US Navy and the other presently doing an Olympic campaign in the 49er class for the 2020 Olympics.
I look forward to help you and your team get to the next level!