SOUTH DEVON’S TRUSTED SAILMAKERS
Our Story
A Dartmouth sailmaking tradition dating back to the early 1980s — bespoke sails and hand-tailored covers, custom-built and properly fitted by people who sail.
Four decades of craft, in chapters below
01 | IT STARTED ON FOSS STREET
Our story begins in the early 1980s, when Don Campbell set up a small sail loft on Foss Street, one of Dartmouth’s historic cobbled lanes, working from his own building at number 26. Trading as Dart Sails, it was a modest operation with a simple aim: to make good sails, properly fitted, for the boats of the Dart. That reputation for honest, bespoke work took root quickly — and it’s the same thread that runs through everything we do today.
02 | CHANGING HANDS, UNBROKEN CRAFT
In 1996 Don sold the business, though he kept the building, and the loft rented from him from then on. The sail loft joined forces with Peter Lucas Rigging, which worked from the unit below, and together they traded as Calibra Marine. Cover maker Jamie Pring joined in 1997 — a name that reappears in this story. Over the years that followed, the business grew, separated and changed hands more than once, and for a short while the Dartmouth sail loft even fell quiet. But the craft Don had started never quite disappeared from the Dart.
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Good sails, properly fitted, for the boats of the Dart.
03 | REBORN 2006
In 2006, Simon and Jane Unwin revived both the name and the craft, incorporating Dart Sails and Covers Ltd. Once again, sails and hand-tailored covers were being designed, cut and fitted for the boats of the Dart, Torbay and the wider South Coast. In June 2012, Jamie Pring came home — rejoining the loft he had first worked in fifteen years earlier, a neat reminder of how small and loyal the South Devon marine world really is.
04 | NEW HANDS ON THE HELM 2015
On 12 January 2015, Dominic Hanley and Sean Semmens bought the business from the Unwins. Between them they brought a lifetime of sailmaking and sail design, along with a shared belief that the best sails come from people who actually race and cruise the boats they build for. The loft has continued to grow under their ownership, welcoming experienced cover maker Mark Underwood in 2022.
When the Foss Street building was sold in 2017, the loft relocated to a purpose-built workshop at Nelson Road in Dartmouth, with the space to take on more new sails and covers. In November 2024, Sean stepped back from the day-to-day running of the company to focus on what he does best, continuing as our Sail Designer, with Dominic leading the business as Managing Director.
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The best sails come from people who race and cruise the boats they build for.
05 | A HOME OF OUR OWN — BRIXHAM, 2026
With our Nelson Road lease coming to an end, we took the biggest step in the company’s history: buying our own premises. The purchase of Unit 1 at Castor Farm Estate, Brixham, completed on 30 September 2025, and after an intensive renovation — a new roof, a full strip-out and a rebuilt loft floor over a third larger than the old one — we worked our last day in Dartmouth on 26 December 2025 before carefully dismantling the loft and moving everything across the river.
In January 2026 we reopened in Brixham. Crossing to the east side of the Dart put us closer to most of the local marinas and gave us the room to work more efficiently, invest in better processes, and look ahead to apprenticeships and a growing team. It also marks a return to something the loft last knew in Don Campbell’s day: working from premises of its own. For the thirty years from 1996 to 2026 the business rented — now, for the first time since Don traded from his own building on Foss Street, the loft is in a building we own outright.
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For the first time since Don’s day, the loft is in a building we own outright.
06 | WHERE WE ARE TODAY
We remain a small, vibrant loft of experienced sailmakers and cover makers — Dom, Sean, Helen, Jamie, Mark and Laura — building bespoke sails and hand-tailored covers for everything from dayboats to blue-water cruisers. The address has changed more than once since Foss Street, but the principle has not: custom-built, properly fitted, and backed by people who know boats because they sail them.