About us

Phil is originally from Picton, New Zealand, but has lived in Christchurch the last 10 years. He started sailing as a young teenager, first with his Dad on keelers, then he got into Paper Tigers (one-person catamaran) competitively. A summer job at a sail loft turned into an apprenticeship as a sail maker. After working in a windsurf shop, he started his own sail loft in Lyttelton, called Lyttelton Sails, a one-man business. He designs and engineers all sails himself, and has them computer-cut, then he puts together (ie sews) the sail in his loft. He has done all kinds of sails, right from dinghies, to old traditional schooners, to cruising boats and high-tech racing sails. His main area of interest is sports boats and fast racing.

Phil is also very good racer and he usually makes boats he races on go faster (OK, this is Astrid bragging). He finished a Shaw 6.5 sportsboat from bare hull and decks (Badonkadonk) and raced that successfully before selling it again (after meeting Astrid and she also put her boat for sale).

Astrid is from Denmark, but has lived 6 years in New Zealand. She is trying her best to get a kiwi accent, but is still detected as a foreigner. As much as she would have loved sailing dinghies as a kid, she grew up on a farm riding horses. She learned to sail when she was 20 on a folk high school (where she also learned to scuba dive). Before university, she crewed on a Danish sail boat (TAT) from Maldives to Crete, 3 1/2 months, the best of her life! These piracy days she is lucky to have done the Red Sea sail, as that's a total no-go at the moment. During university she crewed on a racing yacht and did two more cruising stints during holidays in Portugal/Spain and Turkey/Greece. Her studies (export engineer, which is a mix of engineering and marketing) allowed her to spend one semester at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and in 2006 she came back, this time to Christchurch to do her final thesis and ended up staying. Her parents wasn't too happy, but she was loving it.

In Christchurch she first crewed on a racing boat but then decided it was time to own her own boat, so she bought American Pie, a Raven 26, which is one of the most roomy small keelers for the least money. It was her home for 8 months during which she also raced it for Wednesday twilight races (social) with an all-girl crew. Phil entered the scene first as a friendly sail maker helping her fix a problem with the furler, but winter was approaching and Phil had a nice warm flat, what happend next was pretty inevitable.

The first year or so, they kept each their boat (and still raced each other, though Badonkadonk would often lap American Pie several times). But their common dream of blue water cruising lead them to sell each their boat and join the funds to buy a bigger cruising-capable boat. Long story short, enter Sophia.