Schattauer Sails

Our founder and father, Franz Schattauer, was born in Bremerhaven, Germany in 1909. Bremerhaven is a busy, seaport town, so boats and sailing were natural interests for Franz right from the beginning. His sailmaking career began with a 4-year sailmakers apprenticeship followed by a 10-year journeymanship. He then attended a year of formal schooling in order to learn how to run the business end of a company. In 1940, after passing rigorous exams in the trade school, he was granted the title of Master Sailmaker. He was then qualified to run a business and teach apprentices. You needed this shingle regardless of your trade in order to run your own business, thus giving the consumer a guarantee that you knew what you were doing. If three complaints were lodged against you, your title could be revoked and you were out of business. In 1953, Franz and his family emigrated to Costa Mesa, California looking for better opportunities. After working in Costa Mesa for several years, Franz and family moved to Seattle where he once again opened up his own loft in in 1959. Starting out at Lockhaven Marina and then moving out to Shilshole Bay in 1966, Schattauer Sails has been producing sails for cruising sailors in the Pacific Northwest and beyond ever since. Having garnered a reputation for building "bullet proof" sails, our "bread and butter" has always been cruising sails for near and far. As it turns out, cruising sails do not have to be slow. Over the years, Schattauer Sails have graced many race-oriented boats and they have done well in local races. We ( Axel & Frank ) took the loft over in 1985 when our father retired at the age of 76. Having grown up in the business, we learned sailmaking from the ground up and have been involved in the business since the 7th grade. We lost our summer vacations at that time and had to come to the loft to learn the trade. It was not easy at the time because friends and goofing off during summer vacations called out, but we have come to appreciate having learned sailmaking under our father's tutelage and are proud to be able to work together to continue his heritage and legacy. Axel has been full time since 1970. His craftsmanship is second to none. Not only is his work beautiful but he is fast and very competent as well. His long experience affords us to be one of the hand full of lofts anywhere that can still hand-rope a sail. Axel has worked along side many people at the loft that included journeyman sailmakers from Germany as well as some local northwest sailmakers who received their training at the Bremerton Naval Shipyards during and after World War II. Carol Haase of Port Townsend Sails got her start in sailmaking working for Franz in the mid-70's. Frank has been full time since 1983. His career path led him to an Interdisciplinary Engineering Degree at the University of Washington, wanting to pursue Naval Architecture. He decided to continue on at the loft after having worked in Germany at a commercial shipbuilding yard for a year after graduation. His engineering skills are still being used daily when measuring boats for sails, designing sails and constructing them.