Bainbridge International
About
Bainbridge International is a Canton-based supplier of marine fabrics, sailcloth, awning materials, industrial textiles, marine hardware, safety equipment, rope, cordage and boating accessories. Its customers include sailmakers, marine canvas shops, awning fabricators, boatbuilders, chandlers, marine retailers and industrial buyers across the United States. Trade customers buy wholesale through Bainbridge International, while select products are sold directly to boaters through Bainbridge Retail, giving the company reach into both the trade and recreational markets.
The company has supplied the marine trade since 1917, when it began as Howe and Bainbridge, a wholesaler of textiles to the marine and awning industries that later wove long-staple Egyptian cotton sailcloth. It produced the first experimental synthetic mainsail cloth, used by Ranger in its successful 1936 America’s Cup defense, and helped reinvent sailcloth with Dacron. Its materials have been used by Olympic medalists and America’s Cup contenders, including both Liberty and Australia II in 1983.
What to Know
- Bainbridge pioneered Stabilkote, an early coated nylon ripstop spinnaker fabric.
- The company was once a division of the Dexter Corporation, a Fortune 500 materials maker.
- It merged with the English sail batten maker Short and Norville and its American company, Aquabatten.
- Seventeen of eighteen medal winners at the 1972 Olympics sailed with Bainbridge sailcloth.
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