Cygnus Sails A Brief History
Cygnus, in its present form was established in 1975, primarily as sailmakers and chandlers to the local sailing community In Northamptonshire. In 2000 we moved to Cornwall.
Richard Eisler took over Cygnus in 1975. Cygnus were developing windsurfing sails, teaching windsurfing and retailing windsurfing equipment and Dinghy sailing equipement.
Richard has always been involved in sailing, dating from the time when his parents sailed in Kenya.
With the growth of windsurfing in the 80's and one-design dinghy sailing becoming ever more popular, sails were being mass-produced overseas and there was a need for skilled, experienced sailmakers to back up the new developing industry. The decision to move into this fast-moving sport was quickly taken, and importers seized their chance to work with Richard.
Cygnus pioneered new techniques for repairing and altering sails and accessories. They sourced new machines, materials and staff to keep up with changing developments and that is still maintained to the present date.
Cygnus moved to the present location in 2000. This gave us a bigger sail making area.They further diversified into other watersports, but the sail repair part of the business and the manufacture of high quality sailing school sails and traing sails remained the backbone of the company.
1999 saw the new sport of kitesurfing appear. Cygnus developed boards, control bar safety systems, and kite repairs.
With a reputation for repairing sails, requests to repair kites soon followed and more recently the repair of kite wings.
Cygnus are now actively involved in the repair of dinghy sails, windsurfing sails and kites and wings and are retailing dinghy sailing ,windsurfing, kitesurfing and Wing equipement.
Sailing School Sails
With a dramatic increase in the amount of Dinghy Sailing Schools seen in the late 90's we became very busy repairing school sails and with our vast experience of repairing sails we saw a definite need for high quality school sails that were built to last. Consequently, we now produce specialist school sails ,toe straps ,covers and other ascociated sailing products to sailing schools around the world.
Umbrella & Awning Canopies
With our experience in the marine trade over the last 50 years we now manufacture commercial and domestic umbrella canopies and awning covers. We manufacture these for many trade clients using only the best marine grade acrylic canvas. Commercial canopies for May - Uhlmann - MDT.
We will shortly be releasing our own range of domestic garden and patio umbrellas,using only the best marine grade acrylic canvas.
Marine Canvas Work And Upholstery.
We can undertake most canvas work and offer a marine upholstery service.
And now the web------------------------------
That's the story so far,with the next step being the web and on-line shopping. It's an exciting time for us. We hope you will find our site interesting which we are updating as fast as possible and we will try to pass on some of the useful contacts and information we have gained over the years.
Cygnus is now run by Richard in the new and bigger loft just out side Padstow in Cornwall an carries on with the on line shop retailing specialist watersports equipment which we plan to expand.
Moving to Cornwall was a good move, we have not forgotten the suport from our customers in the Midlands and still maintain our strong ties with the area.