price of items made from man made fabricassociated with sailing, due to rise, mentioned o R4 NEWS this morning

I doubt that the cost of oil that goes into fibre is a major % of the finished cost of goods for any technical textile being sold to sailors. Although shipping costs will also be affected.
 
I doubt that the cost of oil that goes into fibre is a major % of the finished cost of goods for any technical textile being sold to sailors. Although shipping costs will also be affected.

No, but it's a good excuse to raise prices in these difficult times!
 
If the price of oil based materials starts to vastly exceed the cost of labour we will be able to start making things from wood again. And fix things instead of buying new.

Though I thought all this would affect my kids, not me!
 
On the basis that pretty-much everything is made of oil these days, I would expect the price of everything to go up. About the only things that are man-made and aren't made of oil, use oil (energy) to make, so whichever way you look at it, everything is going to get more expensive.
 
There is precedent. In the 70's when the oil price shock caused a shortage of materials and a rise in prices, epoxy type glues and other materials became very, very expensive, which resulted in boat cost increases, and sort of helped the ferro cement boat scene as a low cost alternative to fibreglass. Today's situation is a bit different as oil is available from many other countries and in general terms industry is far more efficient with energy and converting raw materials. This efficiency, or productivity, can be defined through just in time delivery and global connectivity for materials and components required to be combined into final products. If all that costs more, then there is no doubt that our sailing goods will cost more. I have a quote for anew vectran sail, which I am not going ahead with until end of season, I will be curious to see how much the price goes up by.
 
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