How a Hamilton sail shop found itself protecting Air Canada planes

All tallied, it was 15 kilometres of polyester rope, four kilometres of bungee cord, hundreds of nylon hooks, 10 pounds of thread, three sewing machines and one unprompted phone call.

That's what it took Kevin Piper to turn his Hamilton sail shop into an overnight mechanical aviation warehouse in the heat of a pandemic.

Bay Sails, Piper's sailmaking and design shop near the harbour, is the architect behind some 300 snug-tight engine covers that were fitted onto scores of Air Canada planes grounded inside of a service hanger at Toronto's Pearson Airport.

The once-in-a-lifetime project - Piper had zero prior experience with aircraft - began with an unexpected morning phone call in mid-March. On the line were two Air Canada aviation mechanics and practical strangers. They had some questions.

Can you sew big things?" Piper recalled them asking. Can you help us get some prototypes and specifications together?"

Piper had just returned from a sailing trip in the Caribbean to a country gripped by COVID-19. Businesses near Bay Sails were now closed and struggling, his kids now out of school and back at home.

But he could sew big things.

I was officially intrigued when they said that," Piper says.

That afternoon, Air Canada mechanics Sandro Rizzi and Jairo Jimenez drove from Pearson to Piper's shop on Bay Street North.

The trio worked deep into the night, designing prototypes of engine covers to test fit a 787 Dreamliner grounded back at the service hanger.

The prototype fit like a glove. By morning, Bay Sails and Air Canada had agreed to a contract that would see the small businesses build a first batch of 70 additional engine covers. In all, they would go on to build about 300.

I never saw this coming," Piper says. But I felt kind of lucky because so many other businesses were closing and somehow this (opportunity) pops up. It was good timing."

Air Canada was forced to ground about 225 planes due to tanked travel demand and border shutdowns from COVID-19.

Engine covers - typically massive patches of foam-filled fabric - are critical to the integrity of idled aircraft because aluminum, a base material within engines, erodes when exposed to the atmosphere.

If they don't have engine covers at all, the engines have to run roughly every 48 hours to get the moisture out," Piper says. It takes about 1,000 kilograms of fuel just to warm up one engine ... If you're looking at 120 aircraft, the amount fuel that gets lost is staggering."

As far as production went, everything was smooth sailing.

Piper said his shop's loft setup was almost tailor-made for producing engine covers. With sewing machines inset into the floor and large seaming tables stretching waist-high, much of the aviation design was similar to a sailing project.

Engine covers aren't as big as sails, nor as complicated, but there were so many of them," Piper says with a chuckle.

Bay Sails has been open since 1998. Surprisingly, the past three months - in which staff worked from dawn until dusk and through the weekends - wasn't its busiest on record. That comes at peak sailing season, usually in the thick of summer. But it certainly has been the weirdest.

We've done stuff for other industries, but this was just the weirdest. I've never needed so many supplies, let alone kilometres of rope and bungee cord," Piper says, noting supplies were procured from across North America.

It also shows we can manufacture things here in Canada. These engine covers could be the difference in getting an aircraft back up, and I'm grateful to be able to help protect them so they're ready to fly when we are."

Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com