About Us
Elite Yacht Covers, by Paul Gray and Joe Peat, design and manufacture covers and canopies for yachts, pleasure-craft and architectural projects. Based in Manningtree, we are ideally placed to serve both the east and south coast, as well as overseas. All of our covers are made inhouse by experienced machinists which ensures the highest quality of our products, and enables us to custom design each item to suit the individual requirements of the customer.
Our knowledge and experience provide the foundation for Elite Yacht Covers to produce the perfect canvas solution for your boat.
Our Team
Paul Gray
Director
Paul comes from a strong family sailing background and growing up he would be often seen on and around the waters of his hometown, Harwich. He was Harwich Town Sailing Club Cadet champion for 3 years and won the North East Essex schoolboys championship at the age of 12. Following on from this he started racing Hurricane Catamarans and won a total of 7 British and 2 European titles, with a memorable victory at the HTSC 50 boat championship in which he won 11 races on 11 points.
Paul has almost 20 years of experience making yacht covers, beginning his career at ‘East Coast Covers’. He is best known both locally and internationally for his key part in growing the cover department at ‘Dolphin Sails’ from scratch to being one of the most reputable cover makers world-wide. Since 2002 he has completed canvas work on a massive variety of yachts including the Oyster 100 and 125 and SY A – the biggest sailing yacht in the world.
Paul is primarily driven by customer satisfaction and quality products, and constantly endeavours to develop existing products whilst looking for opportunities for new products. At Elite Yacht Covers he is excited to be launching a new generation of sprayhoods and cockpit enclosures which set Elite at the top of the industry standard.
Joe Peat
Director
Joe caught the bug for sailing as a young boy exploring the Scottish coastline on his uncle’s Westerly. Determined to turn his passion for sailing into his profession, Joe headed off to Greece where he worked as a charter skipper for Neilson Holidays, co-ordinating the flotilla holidays around the Ionian. Returning to the UK, Joe started working for Fox’s Marina in Suffolk as a yacht rigger where he developed his strong knowledge of yachts of all shapes and sizes. The skills he learned as a rigger gave him a solid foundation in the marine trade which resulted in him being recruited by Oyster Yachts to work in their commissioning department on the South Coast, working on boats up to 90ft. Joe has been part of the race team on various large Oysters at the Super Yacht Cup in Sardinia and Oyster Regattas in Palma, as well as the 2016 ARC.
Moving back to the East Coast, Joe was given the opportunity to work alongside Paul Gray at Dolphin Sails as the Cover Department Production Manager. During this time, they grew the cover department locally and overseas, and it included frequent trips abroad to work on a variety of ‘big boat’ projects. Joe specialised in implementing CAD technology to enhance and develop the covers they were able to produce.
At Elite Yacht Covers, Joe is looking to pioneer with CAD designed cover solutions and help bring cover design into the 21st century.
With experience drawn back from 2002 – we will be sure to find the very best and highest quality solution for you.
