About Harken
Harken, Inc. is a leading manufacturer and marketer of quality sailboat hardware and accessories.
Manufacturing facilities are located at company headquarters, Pewaukee Wisconsin, USA, and Lurago Marinone, Italy. Sales offices are located in San Diego, California; Tampa, Florida; Newport, Rhode Island, La Rochelle, France; Lymington, England; Marstrand, Sweden and Sydney, Australia.
Throughout the years, our gear has dominated such events as the America's Cup and Olympics.
Our blocks, travelers, furling systems and winches can be found aboard everything from
the smallest dinghies to the largest megayachts and cruisers.
Our sailing accessories were developed by sailors, for sailors and we think they're the best. They include a line of fine Italian casual clothing, deck shoes, sunglasses, luggage and sailing gloves.
ABOUT HARKEN UK
Andy Ash-Vie started work for Harken in 1993 when it was based in Scotland under Peter Fairley's auspices and got sold along with fixtures and fittings to Simpson Lawrence. In 1999 Simpson Lawrence's parent company Clyde Marine decided to restructure its entire marine distribution in the UK.
At this point, Andy dug in his heels and said 'enough is enough', Harken should stand on its own. He and his wife, Cathy, dragged Olaf and Peter Harken to the UK to persuade them this was a good idea and began the hectic process of setting up a dedicated Harken company. Initially they ran the business out of their front room!
Harken UK very soon got too big-with boxes all over the house, garage and garden- Andy and Cathy decided to moved out to premises in a Lymington Boatyard. Expanding rapidly, the team started building up; bringing in technical expertise and keen, motivated sailors turned salesmen.
By 2001 the team and the warehouse were bulging at the seams and a plan had to be made to move to larger premises where there was room to swing a winch handle! We moved into our new building in the spring of 2004. It is 6,200 sq. ft. with planning permission to more than double its size!
September 2006 - Harken UK is still growing steadily and has managed to fill the warehouse and office area of the new building, so thoughts of mezzanines and extensions are starting to form!
There are currently 11 staff at the Harken UK office, but due to a successful year and continued growth we have just added 3 extra staff that are due to start in the next few weeks.
This summer saw the delivery of our brand new regatta service van which travels round to various events providing top technical advice and service, as well as carrying a wide range of spares and replacement parts for breakages! It has been fully branded up and fitted out with all the tools and equipment needed (including a fridge, for the important post work beer!) 
Our clothing and gear retail shop in Lymington is doing well and we have recently launched a new web shop for the full clothing range which is also doing well.
We have a brand new hardware stand (GO70) planned for the Southampton Boat Show later this month (15th - 24th) and our New Softshell technology clothing range is being launched along with a new range of shoes on our Clothing Stand (D005), So we are looking forward to a busy and hopefully successful show.
As this year draws to a close we are celebrating another successful year and with a number of exciting plans and projects already in the pipeline for 2007, Harken UK are working hard but still remembering to play hard too!