Textile innovation on board for the America’s Cup
10/02/2010
Swiss outdoor and sports brand Odlo has supplied an innovative super-hydrophobic jacket to the Alinghi sailing team, for the thirty-third America’s Cup. The race was due to being in Valencia on February 8, although poor conditions in that part of the Mediterranean led to two postponements.
The brand explained that it has used Barrier breathable, water-repellent technology from Swiss textile technology start-up HeiQ in the new jacket. It described Barrier as groundbreaking.
HeiQ makes Barrier through a microparticle based treatment applied during the textile manufacturing process. The resulting structure provides high levels of water repellency. “We decided to select HeiQ’s product after multiple testing by Alinghi team members of several leading water repellency solutions. Barrier was clearly a stand-out in comparison,” said Andreas Kessler, Odlo’s chief executive.
For his part, HeiQ’s head of sales and marketing, Kristofer Skantze, commented: “We are very proud that our innovation has been selected for use by Alinghi in their defence of the America’s Cup. Barrier by HeiQ raises the bar on water repellency performance and the level of protection end-customers should be able to expect in modern fabrics. This is the third generation particle-based textile effects technology developed by HeiQ over the last five years.”
Share this story:
