Jane Nelle

Jane Thompson Nelle was Rhode Island’s first woman sailmaker. Born in Cranston, she moved to Bristol with her husband Martin, an engineer on the Bristol to Portsmouth ferry. It was in Bristol that she began her career in 1923, working in the sail loft of the former Herreshoff Manufacturing Company. She worked for supervisor William P. Paine for 10 years, sewing sails for new boats produced at the company as well as repairing sails for the giant J- Class yachts that raced for the America’s Cup in the 1930s, including ENTERPRISE, the Herreshoff 1930 Defender, and SHAMROCK V, Sir Thomas Lipton’s British Challenger.

Sail making was, and still is, a physically demanding job, requiring cutting heavy cloth on the loft floor and then sewing by hand or on heavy-duty machines. In a 1960s Providence Journal article describing her as “the only woman sailmaker in Rhode Island,” Jane recounted, “In those days, we roped all the sails and had to hand sew them. I can remember working with ropes as much as an inch in diameter.” In 1933, Paine left Herreshoff and started his own loft, asking Jane to join him. After World War II, she continued her career at the Thurston loft in Warren, retiring after 15 years in 1969. Her career spanned the early days of canvas sail making through the modern era of the lighter weight Dacron and nylon sails and included working on sails for America’s Cup boats from the 1930s through the 1960s. Jane moved to Wakefield and continued her needlework, sewing quilts for members of her extended family. She lived there until her death in 1984.

Biography provided by Noreen Rickson, Herreshoff Marine Museum
Image courtesy of Herreshoff Marine Museum and the Nelle Family