Recent boat ads - I don't understand the "advantage"

[Walter P]

Chris,

Contact Sailorman in Ft. Lauderdale for SS rub rail. I bought several lengths of the large size (same as original) for my 48 and although I can't remember the exact price, I believe it was about $8.50 - $9.00 per ft. This was about two years ago and I doubt if the price went up X 5 or 6 times.

My blood boils when I hear of such obvious rip offs. Go to buy anything made of metal today and you hear the same story that the price of SS or brass or copper or brass or wood or concrete or whatever has gone up almost double. Well I'm no bean counter but if a SS boat wiget which was $50.00 a year ago and now it's almost $100.00 is commercial rape. The wiget weighs about a pound and a half, calculating the "wasted" metal during the machining process, lets say it started out at 2 lbs of SS. The difference in cost even if the price doubled would only be 2 or 3 dollars, but I guess since boaters are all fat rich cats it's OK to rape us.

Remember the only reason they do it to us is because we let them. Anyone on this forum can depend on me to pass on whatever information regarding the best prices that I am aware of and of course everyone else will do likewise.

Walt P

[rswirtz]

Sorry if this is off thread, but Mike mentioned the price of metal going up.

It broke 32 degrees here today so I turned on my hose water line to wash the cars and I blew a copper fitting out in the garage. (there was some ice in there)

Ran to Lowes to get some repair stuff and thought I would get a some copper pipe just in case. A 24 inch piece of 1/2 inch was $5.29.... my jaw dropped. Glad I didn't have a BIG plumbing project. Rick

[rswirtz]

Sorry, Walt

[Boss Lady]

I purchase a wide variety of materials in my business. We track the commodities prices so we know which way supplies will be going. It all started with cement, when the chinese started their humongous dam projects. Since then everything is going up. Copper scrap normally is .90 cents a pound, today it is $3.13 a pound. Same goes for other metals. foreign demand has driven up prices for raw materials, and this makes finished goods prices go up accordingly, but not to the point where some people are putting them. If you have not kept up with some of this you will be in for sticker shock when you need to purchase them. Like copper wiring.

[Capt.Erich]

Take a look at their about us http://www.compositecarbonfiberprop.com/about_us.htm
These guys look like the cast off the Sopranos. See anyone with a remote chance of having a clue about sizing props for your yacht?

I agreee. I don't put a lot of stock in to these guys but their web site is interesting. None of their "credentials" says to me they know a thing about propellers or carbon fiber. I think that carbon props make a lot of sense but will take many years before they are the standard of the industry.

Maybe their company slogan should be... "Hey, buy our friggn' props and fagedabodit... you got a problem with that?"

[Boss Lady]

I like their bragging about ISO 9001 certification. We are going through this process right now at work. If you want to call their bluff, ask them who is the certifying/accredited body who awarded them their ISO certification number. We are using UL for an example. This stuff is easy to check even for overseas manufacturers and you cannot fake it.

[Paul45c]

Two things on the rails:

1) most tender davits on the foredeck have no prob getting a tender up over a bow rail;
2) other than the real high-end custom-look sportfishers that obviously are sacrificing the rail just for looks, most people ditch them I think just for reduced maintenance. No polishing. Most of the charter fleet down here don't have rails any more.

I have rails that are original and go back halfway along the house and don't mind them at all, even lookswise, but I also wouldn't see it as a bad compromise to have a rail that only came back ten feet or so from the bow. I wouldn't be putting kids up there like I do now, but for some reasonably fit people it wouldn't be much of a danger for line or anchor handling to have one that size.

You obviously don't send someone up there without sea legs; realistically, though, that bow space won't be of any use to people when you're just cruising if you go with the truncated rails...or none at all.

[Freebird]

You obviously don't send someone up there without sea legs; realistically, though, that bow space won't be of any use to people when you're just cruising if you go with the truncated rails...or none at all.

I wondered why you had that look of terror on your face when you were on the deck reaching for a dock line when I was docking your boat.

Maybe you were afraid the rails were not properly secured nor polished as to avoid scraping your white knuckles.

Good to have you join us again, where the heck have you been?

I missed you JB.