Hi, John! This is Christopher Cole, the Loong rep. How are you? I just saw your email message about the order. Thank you!
Glen Raven Mills is a weaver who not only has its own lines of cloths but is employed to make weaves for various other companies, including sail cloth makers. Challenge Sailcloth, for example, will develop a proprietary weave ratio and pattern -- sometimes even devise a new weaving method -- but then hire a company like Glen Raven Mills to produce the actual cloth. Sunbrella is the flagship line of weaves made by Glen Raven Mills and in this case is the company's own brand. Sunbrella is made to a consistently high level of quality so that color and weave vary little to none from lot to lot. That is the sort of "consistency" to which the quote refers, and achieving it can be difficult and expensive, as any interior designer will tell you. It is indeed something to crow about in the fabric industry.
The cloth I quote for John is a Challenge Sailcloth product. Loong uses cloth only from Challenge, Contender, and Dimension Polyant and does not substitute. You get what you are quoted. We used to use Bainbridge cloth, too, but their discount structure changed, and we had our bases covered by the others, anyway.
I understand the concerns that some people have about ordering from a Hong Kong sail maker. But the deals are not too good to be true. They are real. You may already be considering buying from the same sail maker but at North American prices through a North American company posing as a "sail maker." Below I will give you the inside story -- up to a point -- and you can decide for yourselves.
Most sails these days are made overseas. A particular and quite huge sail making company in China makes the sails for certain "sail makers" whose names you would know, some of whom seem to claim to make their sails in North America. But they don't, unless you consider sewing a brand label onto a pre-made sail to be the key and defining step in sail making.
I cannot disclose the name of this company, but I can tell you that it has state-of-the-art design and production equipment and is growing fast. Loong Sails is closely affiliated with this company, has its HQ in the same block, and its management is at the lofts almost as routinely as the loft management itself, to the point that they think of the lofts as their own.
