Ramona said..
Has anyone had successful dealings with this company? I have waited a month for delivery of a couple of items and nothing yet. Just get an answering machine when I phone.

It seems the new way.
Arnolds Boat Supplies have only an answering machine also.
Is this the new normal?
Hard to believe.

They are beside the boat warehouse and I thought they were the same company. I have bought lots of stuff from the boat warehouse. They even overnighted a pair of Zikk boots last minute for me so I could do the cabbage tree race. The classic boat supplies has always had its doors open and I've looked inside at stuff.

mixed results but they are very expensive i try to never use them

I am in France and have been using Toplicht for years. Fantastic German service. I still use them for certain things.
I hate to say it but the quality of the bronze fastners is not what it used to be.
I have questioned them on it and they say difficult to get in the quantity they need.
I know a shipwright that was snapping heads of screws putting them in.
Like so many things its getting harder to find good quality products.
Anglier stainless in the UK has top quality bronze fastners.
I bought some round and hex bronze bar to make keel bolts and nuts from them. I gave it to the best guy I know here. He said no worries. He gave it back. No can do.
A few of us kept saying we should buy a container of bronze fastners years ago!

Datawiz said..

Some businesses are run by a single person from their spare bedroom.
They keep little or no stock, consolidate customer orders to minimise freight costs and place these orders with a wholesaler every few weeks.
If a customer complains about delays, they blame the supplier, even though they may not have even placed the order yet.
I say stick with the legitimate, established suppliers.
regards to all
Allan

They have a shopfront it seems. I just don't understand why they won't answer the phone or emails. I shall have to drop in for a visit next time I'm in North Sydney.

@tarquin1 if I lived in France I would use Toplicht too. I have bought a fair bit of stuff from them, particularly their tar mastic goop for underwater caulking, tar for rigging and some wooden blocks...and a wonderful junior trawler lamp for the cabin. Their Little Brown Book catalogue is a dreamers paradise! I get it free each year. Some things are gone forever. Can't buy my dometc metho stove anymore for instance.

I try and use Classic Boat Supplies if I can, as it is good to support Australian if they have what I need. The things I want are not at the Whitworths or Boat supplies of this world. If I want that routine sort of stuff then the chandlers at Mandurah are in fact the cheapest I can find and about 200 m from my boat. So is the boat lift so I am spoiled in that way!

woko said..
Mega is the posh rope as good as advertised? I need to replace my peak and throat halyards, was planing to use solid colour braid the posh sounds nice to handle. And as an aside when unraveled does the posh hold it's lay ? You know cork screw like, it's easier to make rope grommets if it does

Hi Woko,

as luck would have it my mast is at home getting deks ole. It held up for three years in WA sun but now I need to start from scratch. The parts I could reach got a coat each year and are perfect.

So to POSH. I have included some photos of rope grommets and halyard splices that have up there for three years. I find with POSH you can do anything with it that you could do with manila. I like it but it does slip around my little winches. They are very old bronze and only about 2' in diameter so that may be the problem. For jib sheets I use some sort of rope I got from Germany and that is murder on the hands but holds on the winch. I use belaying pins for haliards so no issues with POSH there. POSH is easy on the hands and looks the part in my opinion. Stretch is no problem but my rig is petty low tech. The grommet is a bit rough but has held my signal halyard for three years so who am I to complain?

I hope this helps.

Top tip when using D1 is to wrap the mast or whatever you are doing in rags then soak them in D1. Job done overnight rather than spending days putting coats on. It wastes a bit but you will be amazed how much soaks in.
Keep a small jar of D1 and a rag in a zip lock to do touch ups or go up the rig with.

Ramona said..

Kinora said..
@Ramona - I'm still in Pittwater and have been to The Boat Warehouse a couple of times, Classic Boat Supplies is next door as others have pointed out. Let me know if you would like me to drop in to Classic Boat Supplies and check for you, I'm out and about on the 'bike every few days.

Kinora

Thanks for that. I will give them another couple of days to respond. Not sure when we will get to sail up to Pittwater. New owner has gone to Melbourne for the week, tired of waiting for a weather window. The next few days are not looking good either. El Nino has peaked apparently but we are still suffering unseasonable weather.

OK, just sing out if you need them physically prodded with a sharp stick. I'm here until 1st week of March now ...

Sydney weather has been strange, just had 3 days of south-easterlies and rain which meant 3 hours today removing rain water from various parts of the boat. At the risk of thread stealing, how did you deal with water coming down the mast in Ramona? On Kinora, the sump forward of the mast doesn't seem to drain anywhere until the water level reaches the floor. Then it drains over the floor ...

Should that sump have a limber hole to drain water to the bilge?

Cheers,
Kinora

tarquin1 said..
Top tip when using D1 is to wrap the mast or whatever you are doing in rags then soak them in D1. Job done overnight rather than spending days putting coats on. It wastes a bit but you will be amazed how much soaks in.
Keep a small jar of D1 and a rag in a zip lock to do touch ups or go up the rig with.

Top tip indeed ! Wrapping the job in soaked rags brilliant !

Well I finally got someone to pick up the phone today. Waiting on a shipment from the UK. Well that's fine I don't mind waiting. 33 days with no communications though is not good enough these days. I've been buying heaps of stuff online, mostly off eBay and everything from now on will be off eBay.

The UK are having some problems at the moment with some thing called Brexit. It seems to have effected their trading with Europe and everything is a nightmare.
Most of the companies I buy stuff from in the UK are actually saying we suggest not buying from us for the moment.
I would imagine this is having an effect on all exports.
But yes 33 days without hearing from them isn't great!
Hey we are terribly sorry having trouble getting stuff from the UK at the moment!