Sailing Magazine
David Rae, World J22 champion and America’s Cup sailor has joined North Sails in Cape Town.
He has vast experience in sailmaking having cut his teeth in the industry working first for Rob De Vlieg in Johannesburg as a young man and then moving to live in Sydney, Australia where he worked for North Sails for a number of years before returning to RSA.
He has worked as a professional racing sailor, was part of the Shosholoza America’s Cup campaign as mainsheet trimmer, and is a well respected sailing coach.
His role and responsibilities at North will primarily be concentrated on sales and marketing.
With his vast knowledge and experience of offshore keelboat sailing and One-Design racing he is ideally placed to offer clients expert advice from the coalface of sailing across a wide range of cruising and racing yachts. Whether a cruising client, club racer or someone keen on the more high tech aspects of racing, David Rae is well equipped to offer great advice and provide the best solutions for a clients own personal requirements.
His offshore sailing CV is vast and includes Sydney-Hobart, Cape to Rio and other classics.
Rae’s small boat skills are well known – he is the current J22 World Champion, has a number of Lipton Cup wins under his belt, both as helmsman and trimmer, and brings this huge knowledge base and input to clients keen on small boat racing. These one-design and dinghy racing talents and his sailmaking experience place him in the perfect spot to not only work with clients who own small keelers and dinghies, but also to head up the One-Design and dinghy side of the North Cape Town/South African business. He takes responsibility for sales, marketing, class-sail development and liaising with the design and production teams on design, manufacture and finishing of the product. Certain class sails are built locally in Cape Town and others are imported from the North Sails One-Design production loft in Sri Lanka.
David Rae can be contacted at North Sails Cape Town, 021-5112154, 072 456 3191 or david.rae@northsails.com
