COURTESY CATHE HAHN
Cathe hangs out with Hank
Paddling upwind and sugargliding home. That’s Marquette resident and sailmaker Cathe Hahn’s phrase for what she hopes every standup paddleboarder will experience with her latest invention, the Sugarglider sail.
But it also might describe the career path that Cathe found for herself in life.
Cathe grew up in Lower Michigan, but recognized something about herself early in life. “I have to live within walking distance to either Lake Michigan or Lake Superior or Lake Huron.”
With water as her influence, she easily found her major at Michigan State University – “I went into fisheries and wildlife because I loved the lake” – and after graduation did an internship in South Carolina before returning home for what she philosophically calls her “trial marriage” and a move to Petoskey. There, she couldn’t find work in her field, but one day an ad for a seamstress in nearby Harbor Springs caught her eye. Her grandmother, after all, had paid for her sewing classes when she was 11.
Armed with that bit of practical education, she edged out 100 other applicants for the position at Irish Boat Shop under second-generation owner David Irish. An on-staff sailmaker was part of the service provided at the full-service marina. Cathe worked under a master sailmaker and, when that man retired, Dave offered to teach her the rest.
COURTESY CATHE HAHN
So simple, a child can use it as young Hayes (standing) and Cal O’Brien demonstrate Cathe Hahn’s innovative take-along sail for standup paddleboarders.
“It’s an art and a science,” Cathe says. She often was called upon to shape sails for boats racing from Chicago to Mackinaw Island. Different conditions required different designs, so she learned how to sail as well as how to make sails. “You needed to study the shapes, you needed to be onboard for a long period of time.”
Sails are no longer the flat sheets of the past. With new materials like Mylar, Kevlar and carbon fiber, more of the sail’s shape is built into each panel. There is not much stretch. “All of the shape is built in,” she says.
Computer programs can aid design, but a human touch is still required. “So many of these things are dying arts. …Robots will never replace a sailmaker as far as repairs go.”
While her love of sailmaking did not diminish, Cathe decided that retirement (or semi-retirement) after nearly 30 years in the profession seemed reasonable. She was ready, almost, to “sugarglide home.”
COURTESY CATHE HAHN
A young woman tries out Cathe Hahn’s Sugarglider off Catalina Island in California.
Choosing Marquette as her next home was easy. Cooper, her older daughter, had attended Northern Michigan University, graduated, and moved to Colorado. Younger daughter Robyn is now attending NMU. Cathe had taken a shine to the city on the hill overlooking, so importantly, Lake Superior. “I’d come up here even before the kids were born and loved it – the sense of community and the sense of excitement and fun, and everyone is outside all the time.”
Before she left Harbor Springs, though, she’d already created the prototype of an innovation. Watching people enjoy the popular and rapidly growing recreation of stand-up paddleboarding (or SUP), Cathe the sailmaker saw a missed opportunity.
She designed a sail that could be carried in a pouch that is part of the sail. The pouch is tied on anywhere on the board. When the paddler is ready to sail, it comes out of the pouch and the paddle blade slides in to it. A neoprene boot with a simple mechanism goes over the paddle handle to make the sail adjustable to the different paddle lengths.
Then, with the blade up to help catch the breeze, the paddler holds the paddle (mast) with one hand, and with the other holds the sail out at the clew.
“The main challenge was trying to figure out how to make it, because the paddles are adjustable and because the paddle is your mast,” Cathe says.
The prototypes she did were pink with a window in them. She asked friends who did SUP regularly to try them out. The verdict was: “Oh my god, that was fun!” She brought the idea to Marquette, ready for revisions.
For income as she settled in Marquette, Cathe took on sewing projects for homes, boats, bikes – “whatever needed stitching” – and worked out of her house. Then, to meet more people, she started working at Quicktrophy, International. Along with building trophies, she now rents a space upstairs, where she can build her sails and look out at Lake Superior.
She decided to check out the NMU Academic Teaching and Business Innovation Center (Invent@NMU) in the Innovate Marquette SmartZone because she heard they had an industrial sewing machine she might use as a backup. She chatted with the staff at the center and the conversation drifted to her special SUP sail.
“We talked about the machines and started talking about inventions – that just started the whole ball rolling.”
She took the center’s 10-week business boot camp, LaunchPad, and learned about product development, marketing and even got advice about seeking a patent on her “Sugarglider.” She named the sail after the pet of a designer helping her. It was a sugar glider, the marsupial equivalent of a flying squirrel. Patagium, the name she chose for her company, comes from the name of the membrane that allows both the sugar glider and flying squirrel to “fly.” NMU Students helped her to create the drawings and her advisor explained the patent process. Again, with student help, she developed a website for a fraction of the cost to hire a professional.
“That’s what this town is about, it’s about working together,” Cathe says of her adopted home. “There aren’t many roadblocks here.”
She’s partnered with Detroit Sewn in Pontiac to make the sails – “I knew I wanted to produce in the United States and in Michigan” – and she officially launches the new product. She’s working with resorts in Florida as a potential market.
She also sees a market here by the Big Lake as standup paddleboards gain recruits.
“People think it’s going to be hard to stand up on,” Cathe says, but adds that she’s seen 80-year-olds and toddlers master the SUP. It’s a great core workout, too, she says.
What really thrills her is the new perspective SUP provides.
“Rather than sitting down in a kayak, you are literally walking on water. And it is a quiet sport, where you can talk to others.”
She does advise that any paddling on Lake Superior requires respect. “There are times when the waves are too high or when it’s too cold.”
For now, she’s working on paddling her new idea against the wind, but soon, she hopes, she’ll be sugargliding back to a successful new enterprise.