TOO MUCH BOAT GEAR TO ITEMIZE ?????

We did it again! Purchased more marine supplies, hardware and equipment than the store can hold. It's in my patio and garage at home, in the boat shop down on the bay and all about the store and back yard. You would do well to drop by the store as soon as you can. A few of the items you might be interested in could be- 2000 lbs Ancor marine electrical wire. This is the industry standard and we are selling for $6.00 a pound. Buy 100 pounds or more and we'll make it $5.00 a pound. One half ton marine exhaust hose priced at $1.00 per foot per inside diamater inch. Stainless steel sinks, electric stoves and stove tops, valves, zincs, electrical panels, battery chargers, washing machines and dryers, 500 pounds S.S. hose clamps, half ton electrical wiring harnesses-glass pipe and vernal lift glass exhaust pots and on and on. Gotta cut this short and get on with the "trucking", we gotta clear this warehouse by sunset or pay a penalty. P.S. Most items are in new condition, some pretty shelf worn, some show damage. One things for certain, the PRICE WILL BE RIGHT!!!!

Complete Isolation

It's amazing the kinds of things that make their way through our front door. Pictured is an 8 KVA isolator that'll keep your boats electrical system totally protected from spikes and surges coming in through shore power. How much would it cost you to replace your chart-plotters, radars, fish-finders, VHF's, stereos, etc... It's rigged to work with 110 or 220 and was used with Roy Disney's "Pyewacket" as it travelled around the world trying to break records. Charles sells similar units for upwards of $5,000 but you can pick this one up for only $1495.

Mutiny On The Kelpie.....

About once every ten years Orange Coast College Sailing Center taps me on the shoulder and ask me to show the 16 mm color film I took aboard my dad's 65' schooner "Kelpie" on our 1959 voyage to Tahiti. My dad (Capt. Bligh) and brothers Joe and Owen and three other guys head off to the south seas on the big schooner and boy, does the adventure begin. Our first landfall and navigation check was to be Guadalupe island, 300 miles from Newport Beach. Just one problem, dad can't find the island. "No problema" dad says, "bring in the big parachute anchor, hoist the sails and I'm shaping a course for Nuka Hiva only 3000 miles away." Later the same afternoon we go to start the engine and find that by laying too on the big sea anchor all night sea water pounded up the exhaust pipe and filled the engine with water and put it out of commission for the next 75 days! Weeks later we near the equator and encountered our first tropical squall. As the black mushroom shaped cloud came down on our port beam, dad said, "sheet the sails in flat, the wind seems to be dying?" Wow, we learned first hand what a "KNOCK-DOWN" was!!! Luckily, GOD intervened and saved us from sinking as water was cascading down the spiral staircase into the main saloon of "Kelpie." I'm showing the movie on March 1st. You can call the store for time and location. The film is so-s0? My girlfriend's dad gave me a 16 mm camera and 2000 feet of color film and thought perhaps we could win and Oscar with the finished product? Second time I used the camera I dropped the wind-up key overboard and had to wind the camera with needle nosed pliers for the rest of the trip. Anyway, if you are in town that night, drop by and see my presentration, won't show it again for ten years. Oh yes, the Minney brothers finally had enough B.S. from their loving father (Capt. Bligh) and carried off a MUTINY???????

Bronze chocks from New Zealand......

Chrome plated and bronze chocks from Chatfield Engineering of New Zealand. After forty years and tons of boat hardware have passed through our hands, we know QUALITY when we see it. When Pacific Seacraft closed their plant and had an auction there were several pallets of pure GOLD!! We were forced to bid against than man that purchased the molds and tooling and is now building the lovely line of Pacific Seacraft sailing yachts. Hard-ball it was on the auction floor but we hung in there and beat out the deep pocket boat builder and ended up with all the hardware from the stock room of Pacific Seacraft yachts. Most of you have never heard of Chatfield Engineering. While in New Zealand on my big schooner "Shearwater" I was in a race and two of my 3/4" turnbuckles broke. The threads on the forks let go and the forks pulled right out of the turnbuckle body. Wow, lucky I didn't lose the entire rig? I checked the rest of my turnbuckles and found a sort of electrolysis on all the threads. Asking around the yacht club all the old salts referred me to Chatfield Engineering. I contacted them and two weeks later I installed 20 of their high quality big turnbuckles on my schooner. Pictured are a couple milk cartons of C.E. chocks. They are large so call or e-mail for measurements. At a glance at the price you'll think that seems high for Minneys? When you see the quality, you'll agree the chocks are fairly priced. To date our best customer has been Pacific Seacraft. P.S. The original owners of Pacific Seacraft went on to start a power boat company. They called it Cabo Yachts. When they were in full production they were importing almost a million dollars of year of marine hardware from Chatfield Engineering of New Zealand......

My favorite island.............

Summer's coming! Now's the time to get all those projects done so you will have a trouble free and comfortable time aboard your boat in your favorite anchorage. The picture above needs no caption. I'll put Avalon (only about 25 miles off the coast of Southern California) up against any quaint anchorage in the world. Yes, it's a bit too on the commercial side in summer but it's still a huge amount of fun. Give the kids a twenty dollar bill and send them ashore. The video arcade, miniature golf, the pleasure pier and white sandy beaches will entertain them for hours. Not wanting to become a "boat potato" I make it a point to hike the loop up to the bell tower (ran into a 8 point deer at the Zane Gray hotel last time I was up there) and keep going to the top of the new zing line and then down past the new Wrigley home and back into town. Another great walk is up to the Wrigley mansion on Mt. Ada and keep going all the way to the Edison power plant and the boat yard. You better have a good heart to make these hikes cause it's all uphill. Catalina Island is a very special place to our family. My dad lived there and went to high school and my grandfather ran charter boats off the pleasure pier in the 1930's. Yes, it's time to get our boats ready for summer fun. I'm in a little log cabin in Colorado as I write these notes. It's snowing outside and what am I doing? Making my list of boat projects. Replace windows on trunk cabin, replace steering cable, caulk seam between cap rail and bulwarks, pull rig or at least go aloft and make sure I can get another season with what's there and on and on and on...........

Bronze pumps & engine controls.......

Pictured are a few of the pumps that end up at our store. Quite often a boat owner sells us his spares knowing that he will get no more money for his boat if he includes the extra pumps, impellers etc. We're not sure what engines a lot of these pumps go to? Usually, local marine mechanics pick them up and re-sell them to their customers at healthy mark-ups. We also have several milk cartons full of impellers. Most are new and an average new impeller for a Jabsco 1" pump would be about $10.00. The engine control pictured is just one of the large variety of gear shifts, and throttles that end up at the store. One engine control manufacturer saw some of his controls on our BLOG and purchased all we had. That kinda sends us the message that he could buy his controls cheaper from us than he can build them. KEEPING BOATING AFFORDABLE is our mission in life...........

BOOM HARDWARE AND LOANER TOOLS......

Pictured is just one of the hundreds of milk cartons that are full of mast, boom and spinnaker pole fittings. Also is a picture of our loaner tools. Through the years riggers and boat owners have sold us their rigging tools, cutters, nicro-press and other hard to find and very expensive tools. Rather than sell them we keep them around and loan them out FREE OF CHARGE. Give us a deposit worth the value of the tool, take it for the length of time you need it and return it and get your full deposit back. We've even got the big rigging vice out of Lido Shipyard. Need to splice some 3/4" wire for your clipper ship? We've got the rigging vice to make it easy, complete with the marlin spikes. P.S. Will the guy that took my $200.00 adjustable battery terminal crimper on a $50.00 deposit PLEASE RETURN IT?

FIVE TONS OF ANCHORS!!!!

Pictured is one of four huge boxes of Lewmar anchors. When the original maker of this style anchor lost their patents several companies started making knock-offs in China. Many of the early models were of poor quality and knock-offs got a bad reputation. When Lewmar started making anchors in China we knew they wouldn't have their name cast onto the shank if they hadn't done their homework and came up with a strong and dependable product. We started stocking these anchors in quantity about 5 years ago and seldom if ever did we get a complaint or have one returned. Recently, Lewmar contacted us and made us an offer on tons of their popular anchors. When they said they would pay the shipping cost, we made a great buy for our customers. We've already sold dozens of the "GRABBERS" at the best price in town. To strum up a little extra business in our slow winter months (been like summer out here) we'll knock off an additional 10% to BLOGGER customers through the month of February......P.S. The matched set of Barlow bicycle winches priced at $195.00 each are sold. That pair today would cost over $5000.00 !!! Dudes, are we keeping boating AFFORDABLE or what??? Been watching too much "X" games...........

$1000.00 Band Saws.... $195.00 each !!!

Pictured is what is left of the 18- Rockwell 14" Band Saws that we picked up at the Cabo Yacht auction. We sold most of them for $495.00 each. There's about 5 left and they all have minor parts missing or minor damage. They were packed in the vertical position without being secured properly and fell over in transit. They were all being used daily at the Cabo Yacht facility in Southern California. This make and size is the industry STANDARD for medium size boat building projects. On various boats I was working on I hoisted one on deck and found it invaluable for the work I was doing. These are not the same machines you see at the big box stores for $295.00. This is the Rockwell commercial use model and I am guessing the weight at over 200 pounds. Parts are easy to order for these machines. I found out first hand when at the end of the work day a well meaning friend helped me to put my awning up to cover my tools and band saw. He gave a "yank" on an awning line that was fouled on my Rockwell and I watched as my band saw jumped off the deck of my schooner and landed on its side on the dock six feet below!!!!!

New Headsails

Three dozen new headsails just added to the list here!

Quality wood rowing oars from New Zealand......

First Quality Gull wooden oars from New Zealand. A "step above" the oars you purchase at the big box stores and priced a bit less. Five to eight footers in stock now. One time deal, this was a boat company's close-out, they're selling fast. Call or e-mail for price and availability. Also is our our popular line by the pound boxes pictured. We purchase it by the TON so why not sell it by the pound. Most is new, some might have a missing thread because the machines kept running until quality control picked up the mistake. Some is odd colors, we have thousands of pounds of a bright green. For some reason, yacht owners don't want green dock lines. I just can't figure it out? I thought the new trend in our country was to GO GREEN. In background of line boxes are twenty 600 foot spools of one inch white double braid yacht line. We ran a special during December for $500.00 a spool and sold a few spools. If you snooze, you loose. Price is now back to $600.00 a spool which is still a great value. Some is polyester and some is nylon.

New Mainsails!

Dozens of new mains are being added daily! Check our list here.

MATCHED PAIR BARLOW BICYCLE WINCHES

Pictured is a matched pair of two speed bicycle winches from a 55' ketch. They run rough and you should assume they need a complete rebuild? Great for spare parts if you have a set aboard your boat now. $195.00 each. Weight guessed at about 80 pounds each. Also pictured are brand new set of safety or stern rails for the swim step of a large yacht. I doubt if you could but the raw stainless steel for what we are asking for the brand new set. $295.00 for a set of three, we do not have the bases. Also note: We have several boxes of Barient bicycle winch and cross-connect parts off "Windward Passage" and other large race boats. This stuff is getting impossible to get. Call or e-mail store for pics and specs...

Feathering props and turning blocks.........

Great buy on practically new Max type feathering propeller and Edson brand new big boat pedestal or turning blocks for steering systems. We keep boating affordable..........