Best Chandlery?

[PEEJAYSEA]

For fear of having done this already?

I am looking at kitting out Windthief which I bought basically as a bare boat. She is based at Barry.

Who is the best chandlery in the BC area?

I would appreciate your thoughts as I need pretty much everything from boat hook to fenders, warps to hand held compass.

Also what do you think the likelihood of getting a "discount" with a large order?


Thanks
Paul

 

[chrishelen]

I find Force 4 in cardiff,Penarth road to be very good.I think they have a price matching thing going on.I bought a chart plotter last year and Stew,the boss matched the price with one on the net,AND threw in a cmap thingy of the UK FOC.

Also the staff seem to actually like customers in the shop even if you dont buy anything,unlike some nearby chandlers where customers seem to be annoying pests,imho.

 

[Coaster]

There's no such thing as a "best" chandlery. Some are good for one category whilst another will be better for something else. Note that 'good' and 'better' don't necessarily mean cheapest. For items that might go wrong, such as a water pump or an outboard, it's not worth saving a few pounds on the initial price but subsequently spend lots of time and money trying to resolve a problem with someone many miles away.

I have bought quite a few things from Marine Scene in Penarth and have always found that company good to deal with. The prices for many items are competetive.

Based in Milford Haven, we try to buy from our local chandlery and marine engineering company, Windjammer, whenever we can. Prices for quite large items are sometimes very competetive. Windjammer sell some products, such as Sikaflex, all over the country.

Big ticket items vary in price dependent on the time of year and on the stage in the production run. For example we bought a Garmin 3010 chartplotter when it was being replaced by the 4000 series. For us the 3010 is perfect and the price was a third less than we'd have paid 6 months earlier.

My favourite online chandleries are:

Marine Scene

Marine Super Store (NOT Megastore)

Piplers

Then there are the specialists for electrical, sanitation, rope and lots more. There are probably several dozen websites bookmarked in my Firefox browser.

 

[Allan]

I have said this on here before. When I bought my boat I put together an email, listing all the things I wanted for the boat and asking for a quote, with discount. I sent it to all the online chandlers I could remember/find. I had been into Marinescene many times but didn't associate the website with the shop. Some emails were not answered. Some just said the prices are on our website, Others gave prices with a discount. The best quote was from Marinescene. As said above, they have matched prices from the web and other shops for me. A couple of times they have said the web prices were so good they could not match it. I always give them a chance to save me money.
Allan

 

[Oceanis]

I find Force 4 in cardiff,Penarth road to be very good.I think they have a price matching thing going on.I bought a chart plotter last year and Stew,the boss matched the price with one on the net,AND threw in a cmap thingy of the UK FOC.

Also the staff seem to actually like customers in the shop even if you dont buy anything,unlike some nearby chandlers where customers seem to be annoying pests,imho.

+1 and they're opening a branch in Swansea Marina in the Swansea Marine Group building on Trawler Way. Used to buy most of my stuff from Marine Superstore but Force 4 have become sharper on their prices over the last year or so.

 

[SAMYL]

Have a look at Bosun Bob's, most things competative and good service too.

http://www.bosunbobs.com/

 

[PEEJAYSEA]

Thanks

Thanks Chaps

I agree that staff at Cardiff Force 4 (on the one occasion that I have used them) were very helpful indeed. The prices there seemed very fair too – with the limited experience I have to date.

Marine Scene also looks promising in many areas to.

I think I will compile a shopping list and send it to both and see how they play that. I need to stick to the “essentials” rather than getting sucked into “have to have’s)!

Thanks again.

Paul