About ATN: Forty Years of Sailing Made Safe & Fun

Who Founded ATN

ATN Inc. was founded in 1985 by Etienne Giroire, a French-born American citizen and offshore racer with fifteen years of delivering, skippering, and racing maxi sailboats before he ever started a company. He founded ATN to solve a problem he had been living with on every boat he sailed: there was no spinnaker handling device on the market that actually worked properly.

The pivotal moment came at the start of the 1985-86 BOC (the first modern single-handed round-the-world race). Etienne was in Newport helping his friends prepare their boats for the race and noticed that the sailmakers building the spinnakers had no good answer for handling them on a shorthanded boat. Every device on the market got stuck, fouled, or failed under conditions experienced crews could not always work around. He went to the sailmakers with a new design, the original ATN Spinnaker Sleeve, and within a year had twenty sailmakers ordering sleeves to include with the spinnakers they built. The sailmaker network that grew out of those first twenty relationships now numbers more than three hundred, across the United States and abroad.

The founding ethic has not changed in forty years. Every product in the ATN catalog solves a problem Etienne has personally encountered on the water, and he has never stopped refining the novel products he has designed and developed for his many customers.

I had used every spinnaker handling device available in the market at the time, and was disappointed every time. They would get stuck and foul frequently and were very unreliable, even when handled by an experienced crew. I remember checking the spinnaker sleeves of the competitors of the 85/86 BOC in Newport and thinking that the sailmakers could use some help.

Etienne Giroire, founder, in his own words.

Why ATN?

As a Frenchman living in the US, Etienne discovered many Americans had a hard time saying his name. He found himself teaching people to say the letters A-T-N when they were doing business with him, and when it came time to incorporate because his novel spinnaker sleeve design was taking off in 1985 it was the obvious business name for him. So what does it stand for? Technically, when registering the business Etienne was required to say what the letters stood for, and on the spot he said it was "American Technic Navigation", but the reality it is named so to help Americans with their French pronunciation.

For the Love of Sailing

Etienne himself will say that he's "not a serious racer". He simply loves sailing and everything about it, which has compelled him over the years to design products to make sailing safer and more fun.

For not a serious racer, he's had quite his share of racing experience. He famously won the OSTAR 1992 40' class in "Up My Sleeve", a boat he sailed by himself across the Atlantic to the race's start, arriving just days before the start. His 40' tri ended up winning the 40' class in a time record that still stands 34 years later: 16 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes. He finished 7^th across the line with only 60' class boats ahead of him, and was the first non-sponsored boat to finish.

He's also had his share of racing heartbreak. He suffered a badly broken arm on the Whitbread '89-'90 (he was aboard the 82' ketch "The Card" specifically to help handle the seven ATN spinnaker sleeves aboard), and lost his much-loved 40' trimaran when it flipped on him in the Route du Rhum 2010. Read Etienne's full account of the 2010 Route du Rhum.

Etienne never stopped racing offshore once the company was founded; the products were tested on his own boats, in his own races, in conditions that ranged from trade-wind cruising to the Southern Ocean.

His love of sailing continues unabated, and he is now happily sailing his 48' Beneteau.

Built at Scale, Trusted Worldwide

40 years of continuous manufacturing. 33,000+ ATN Spinnaker Sleeves shipped. 15,000+ ATN Tackers shipped. 8,000+ ATN Mastclimbers shipped. 2,000+ ATN Gale Sails shipped. 300+ sailmaker partnerships, US and abroad.

Every product designed by a sailor and passionately improved wherever possible. Built from a love for sailing, for sailors everywhere.

ATN Joins the Sunrise Yacht Products Family

In 2026 Etienne decided it was time to go sailing a lot more. As much love as he has for his many customers, the sea was calling a little louder. One of the many relationships he'd built over the years was with the owner of Sunrise Yacht Products, and in our conversations we found mutual passion for constantly building and improving our specific products. Sunrise is particularly focused on ultra-high-durability trampoline nets for multihulls.

ATN has now joined the Sunrise family, and we are proud to have Etienne remaining as a brand ambassador. Only now he will be out there sailing with all of you, our customers. If you see him (whether on the water, or with us at the Annapolis show), I strongly encourage you to say hi and see what you can learn from him. We learn something new every day he's at our shop.

Going forward: we will be making everything that he made right here in our shop in Florida. The products, the warranties, and the direct-from-the-manufacturer customer service that you have relied on for forty years continue without interruption.

That is not to say nothing will change — that would simply not be following the Etienne ethos. ATN and Sunrise both have a history of developing entirely new products to meet the needs of our customers, and we have both always constantly sought out ways to improve what we do. It is who we are, and I'm excited to see how we can continue to serve you, our customers, for the next forty years.