About us
Specialising on producing the finest quality yacht masts, wooden oars and spars we pride ourselves on a personal, tailored service, and maintain a close and constant contact with our customers. From the critical choice of timber to the final stages of smoothing and varnishing, a Collars product has over seventy years of experience and expertise put into it, making it the number one choice time and time again.
It was in one of the old Oxford University boathouses on the edge of the Thames, that Frank Collar started the business.The year was 1932 and with very few tools and no electricity supply, repairs to the college oars kept the new business busy.
With Frank being a keen rower, he could see the potential for business not only with Oxford University , but also other colleges. By the time the Second World War broke out, the Collar reputation was sufficiently well established for Frank to secure a contract with the Air Ministry, to make oars for aircraft lifeboats.
Gradually the business built up so much that F Collar Ltd supplied oars
for all the Olympic Games between 1952 and 1984, making the name
instantly synonymous with premium quality racing oars. Collar's wooden oars
and spars have gone all over the world. Chay Blythe and John Ridgway
used them for their Atlantic crossing. Countries such as New Zealand,
Canada, Australia and of course Great Britain, have taken them into
competition. One retailer in Maine, USA proudly advertises their stock
as 'hand crafted in England'!
With
many parallels between wodden rowing oars and yacht spars, namely the use of
the best quality Sitka Spruce, it only a matter of time before this
market found Collars. Enterprise and Wayfarer dinghies were the first
in a long line of classes that relied on Collars to produce spars after
the post-war boom in small dinghies and family boats. With the
introduction of Carbon Fibre rowing oars in the mid '80's, the demand
for wooden oars declined leaving Collars to focus their attention on
yacht spars. Today this accounts for 85% of the business and with the
move to larger premises in 2002, Collars capacity has increased to
match the revival in the classic yacht market.
Usually
the initial shaping is done by machine but one craftsman does the final
work with traditional hand tools, so an interested customer can
actually meet the person who was responsible for the finished mast.
This relationship is particularly important with one-off jobs that may
require frequent consultation with the customer.
Although
machines have made the job lighter and quicker for modern oar and spar
makers, there is still a tremendous amount of skilled hand work
involved. From the critical choice of timber to final stages
of smoothing and varnishing, a Collars product has over sixty years,
three generations and several working lifetimes of experience and
expertise poured into it.
