I`m a very simple man & I look at life in a very simple way, I see no need to complicate matters & that works for me, I believe in honesty, Decency & manners, Things that nowadays seem to be out of fashion. Look at the fiasco I had with the Engineers at Bluewater horizons, All they were interested in was lying & ripping me off for every penny they could get & then leaving me with a total mess to deal with, Even now I still have an exhaust bellows that was never fitted properly & keeps coming apart as soon as I lift the leg on my boat.
It really annoys me when people show a total disregard for others, It annoys me even more when I see people like those who don`t seem to realise that if they treat you that way you really won`t be going back. A bit stupid really, they are only losing business & gaining a bad rep.
I recently contacted a company Called Propellor Solutions, from Sturminster Marshal in Dorset, They were recomended to me by a member of our club who had bought a 4 blade prop & had a good experience with it, So I wrote to them about these props as I really could do with a new one & if it gained me some extra performance all the better. I wrote to them THREE times, & not just a small note, in depth descriptions of my boat, size, shape, Hull design, Performance, Engine & leg type, Prop make & design along with the numbers stamped on the prop which show its size & pitch etc. etc. & I included various photos of everything they needed to see. Now props are, as with all things boaty, not a cheap item, especially when they are stainless steel, performance, with no welds etc. So one would think that a company like that would welcome the custom. But in the end I had to write to them & tell them that thier total pig ignorance & bad manners was disgusting & I would never recomend them to anyone. After writing to them three times I never recieved an answer either by email or phone though thier enquiry form uses astrixes to say you must provide your phone number & email address. Personally I would not have been so bothered if they had contacted me & said they couldn`t help, at least that would have been some recognition that they had at least read your email, But No, I recieved nothing, To me that is just down to pure ignorance, bad manners & maybe a little snobbery because my boat was a little older than the nice new ones they provide props for, All in all a bad experience which I would not wish to repeat & I will certainly be taking my custom elsewhere.
I suppose as we go through this boating life we are going to meet lots of undesirable tradesmen the same as we do in our home lives & all we can do really is pass on our experiences to others who enjoy the same pastime in the hope that they can avoid the same experiences.