About Brad Stephens
Brad Stephens.
Brad Stephens is committed to providing quality solutions to the sailmaking community of sail designers , sailmakers and sail membrane manufacturers.
With nearly forty years of experience covering sail design , sail design software , sailmaking and sail membrane manufacturing Brad is an unequalled position to provide a broad range of expertise through both products and services.
History
Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, Brad’s sailmaking and offshore sailing career began with Bob Fraser at Fraser Sails in 1975 and in the early 1980’s his passion for design and the emerging personal computer lead to a career in sail design and sail design software.
Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s Fraser Sails was a premier sailmaking group in Australia and beyond and Brad lead a full time team in the design office, with numerous new custom yacht builds requiring his close attention and co-operation with yacht designers, boat builders, sparmakers and riggers. During this time Brad also participated in numerous offshore races and regattas including the Sydney-Hobart, Admirals Cup, Kenwood Cup, One-Ton Cups and other international events as a sail trimmer and boat speed master.
The advent of North Sails 3DL brought great changes in the industry and Fraser Sails responded with the development of the D4 sail membrane where Brad’s background in sail design and sail design software facilitated his role as one of the principal developers.
Following the acquisition of D4 by DIMENSION-POLYANT Sailcloth GmbH in early 2004 Brad spent the following ten years with DP but a re-emphasis on the core (rolled goods) business resulted in the sale of the D4 manufacturing equipment in 2013 and Brad’s departure from the company to again pursue his design interests.