ROB KEMP || FOUNDER / MANAGING DIRECTOR
I started sailing when I was 4, sat in the bottom of a dingy on the River Thames. A move from Hampton to Poole by my father’s work commitments turned out to be a life defining moment for me. My parents joined our local sailing club, Poole YC, and that turned out to be the inspiration for a life dedicated to all things water based.
My first boat was a rather old Gull dinghy that my father has lying around in the garden, after some serious TLC it was ready for its first outing in years. Whilst I was learning to sail it was all rather “seat of the pants”, no formal training – just a book with a couple of photos. My sailing ended up leading to me spending several years traveling around the world with a match racing team, though this quickly came to a halt as my two children developed a rather addictive dinghy racing habit and I became a private taxi driver, maintenance guy and all round facilitator. Now grown up and extremely skilled sailors in their own right, you will often come across them racing, coaching RYA squads or here in the loft. Imogen covers our PR activities and Angus is in the loft or out and about measuring fitting or on boat show stands.
Having founded Kemp Sails aged 19 little did I know it was going to grow from very humble beginnings to one of the UKs largest sailmaking brands employing a team of sailor sailmakers who take passion in building our customers the very best products.
I am often asked what is our USP? It’s a very simple answer, it’s the people in our team. They are a great bunch to work with (most of the time) and I can trust the sails are built with infinite detail because the guys build sails they would want to use and be proud of!
When the day job is over, and a sailmakers day can be pretty long sometimes, I will be out on the water cruising or racing yachts and dinghies. I am writing this on a sunny Friday, late afternoon; this weekend is our club regatta, so next job is a bit of regatta prep and boat checks on my ILCA (Laser to those more old school) so I can try to stay in front of the fleet, in particular the older youth sailors I taught when I ran the clubs training section. It gets harder every season, either I taught them too well or I am just getting older. Vanity and my competitive streak says the former, but at some point reality will settle in!