Custom Clothing Printing in Poole: Marine and Watersports Kit
By The Velocity Wear Team
Velocity Wear prints and embroiders clothing for Poole businesses and clubs as an online supplier, with tracked delivery rather than a counter to visit. In a town built around one of the largest natural harbours in the world, the decisions that matter are fabric and method: polyester and sublimation for anything that gets wet, embroidery for crew and shore staff, and a firm no to needling waterproof outer layers.
Water Changes the Fabric Question First
Cotton is comfortable, cheap and useless once it is soaked. It holds water, gets heavy, and stays cold in a breeze coming off the harbour. Anyone spending real time on the water, whether that is instructing at Baiter, running a rib out towards Brownsea or crewing a race boat, wants polyester or a technical blend as the base layer rather than a cotton tee.
That single choice narrows the printing options in a helpful way. Polyester rules out DTG entirely, since DTG is a cotton process. It opens up sublimation, which is polyester-only and bonds dye into the fibre so there is no surface layer to crack, peel or lift. DTF sits in between and works across cotton, blends and polyester, which makes it the flexible answer when a club has a mixed kit list.
The Sublimation Trap Every Club Hits Once
Sublimation cannot print white and cannot work on dark fabric. The dye is translucent, so it needs a light base to show. A club whose colours are navy and gold will get a very disappointing sample if it assumes sublimation behaves like ink on paper.
The way round it is to have the garment itself made in the base colour, so the dark ground is the fabric and sublimation supplies the graphics on lighter panels. Otherwise switch method: DTF prints white ink and sits happily on a dark polyester top. This catches out more sailing and paddling clubs than anything else, and it is much cheaper to learn from a paragraph than from a delivery.
Do Not Embroider a Waterproof Shell
Embroidery is a stitching process. Every stitch is a hole. On a polo or a fleece that is irrelevant, and embroidery is genuinely the most durable option there. On a taped, coated or membrane-backed waterproof jacket, a chest logo puts several hundred perforations straight through the barrier you bought the jacket for.
Sensible alternatives are a heat-applied transfer, a badge sewn only at its edges onto a lined panel, or branding restricted to a non-critical layer such as the fleece worn under the shell. If a supplier offers to embroider a sailing jacket without mentioning any of this, that tells you something useful about the supplier.
Kit Lists That Actually Work on the Water
- Sublimated rash vests and race tops in polyester, for full-coverage graphics that will not crack after a season of salt and UV.
- DTF-printed technical tees for club members, where you need white ink or full-colour artwork on a darker base.
- Embroidered polos and fleeces for instructors, shore crew and reception, because they get washed constantly and need to look like a uniform.
- Vinyl names and boat numbers applied per garment, so squad tops can be personalised without paying setup for each name.
- Screen-printed cotton tees for regatta merchandise and spectators, which is the one place where cotton is exactly the right call.
Harbour Trade, Boatyards and Chandlery
The commercial side of Poole runs a different specification again. Boatyard and marine engineering staff work with antifoul, resin, grease and solvents, so light colours are a waste of money and embroidery beats print because the wash cycle is brutal. Chandlery and marina office staff sit at the customer-facing end and can carry a smarter polo or a branded quarter-zip.
For quayside and cross-channel businesses, branding that reads at distance matters more than a subtle mark. A logo legible from the water is doing a job. A tonal one is decoration.
“"Salt, sun and a hot wash will find every shortcut in a garment inside one season. They are the only reviewers worth listening to."”
Timing Around the Season and Event Calendar
Production begins at artwork approval, not order placement. Screen printing and embroidery typically run around 10 to 15 working days from approval, while sublimation and more complex jobs sit nearer 15 to 20. Add proofing, revisions and 2 to 5 working days for UK delivery. For a summer regatta or a season opener, that means committing artwork well before spring rather than in the week the weather finally turns.
Proofing, Quantities and Pricing
Minimum order is 20 pieces per order with sizes mixed freely, which suits a club squad or a small yard team without forcing 20 of every size. The free Design Studio shows artwork on the garment before anything is produced, and the instant price calculator updates as you change garment, method and quantity. Bulk discounts reach up to around 40% as volumes rise, so a club that combines its squad order with a members' order usually does considerably better than running the two separately.