Paul Heiney Yacht chandlers do a fine job and are generally a pleasure to visit but there are moments when you can’t help but get the feeling you’ve been cheated
H
ow much would you pay for a piece of wood? I’m thinking of a longish piece, but strong, around eight feet, but thin enough to hold in your hand. If you were lucky and a gale brought down a convenient tree, I suppose you’d get it for free. If you had to go to a timber merchant it might cost you a few quid. On the other hand, if you went to chandlery your might have to fork out £99.95, plus postage, and think yourself lucky to get such a bargain. It was this (lame) joke that I exchanged with the chap at the boatyard as he launched me for the season. Once in the water, you have to make a tight turn from a standing start if you don’t want to be getting intimate with the boats opposite. To save them having to ring the bell at Lloyds, Keith gives your bow a shove, strong enough to shift a bus, with his eight foot pole. It always works. ’There’s a market for that. Quick, get it in the chandlery!’ I said. ’Around ninety nine quid! he shouted back, grinning. There’s a huge amount of kit that only chandlers can provide, and they’re very good at it, but do you sometimes suspect that the word ’maritime’ puts at least 20 per cent on the price? If you have a long memory, you may recall that there was a ’luxury’ rate of VAT of 25% on yacht fittings when other sports suffered a more comfortable 15%. Inventive sailors shopped elsewhere and, if needing shackles for example, followed farmers into agricultural stores. There, galvanised shackles were essential farming items at rock bottom prices; and while the boat owner was there, wondering if that 50 litre tub of ’udder ointment’ might also make decent antifouling, their eyes might have fallen on the rubber boots and foul weather gear that farmers use. This was the era of the ’yellow wellie’ which all smart and overfunded sailors were wearing. The more canny knew that a pair of farmer’s boots was every bit as good, and probably half the price. For that reason, can I recommend that you return to that agricultural store should you be in need of a new boat hook. How many boathooks do you have at the moment?
I mean actually on your boat and not at the bottom of a harbour, or still leading a lonely life clinging to a mooring buoy after you were forced to let go when the chump on the wheel gave her a hard burst of astern just after you’d grabbed it, making you choose between the boat hook or your shoulder socket? I’ve got lots of boat hooks. I’ve even got one of the violent antique type which is heavily galvanised with a fearsome, mediaeval spike which looks as though it might once have been used on the wild boar hunt. It is rarely deployed these days for fear of being found in possession of an illegal weapon. But the others are in regular use. There’s one that promises to hook a rope through a mooring every time - which it almost does but you need a good aim. There’s one with a springy hook which is suppose to help you capture a shoreside cleat when coming along side. That’s OK, but the handle isn’t very long so you have to get so close to the cleat you could step ashore with a line anyway. Then there’s the extendable fiend which takes the skin off your finger ends every time you try to shorten/lengthen it. And then there’s the one you will find at your nearest agricultural supplier. Ask for a double-ended shepherd’s crook. You don’t have to dress like a competitor from One Man and his Dog, they’ll serve you anyway. You’ll get an aluminium pole with a broad hook at one end, normally used to capture a sheep by the neck, but perfect for picking up anything useful that might drift by, such as someone’s escaped fender. And at the other end, a much narrower hook, used to capture a sheep’s hind leg, but far more useful on a boat for picking up a trailing line. How many times have you tried to retrieve the end of a sheet that’s gone over the side, only for it to slip off the boathook inches from your grasp? If a shepherd’s crook can capture an unwilling ram, a wayward spinnaker sheet is a minor task. It’s so easy. And now you must keep this secret. By all means buy your shepherd’s crook, but don’t tell anybody else. You know what will happen. The next time you go into the chandlers there it will be, an anchor painted on it and stamped ’marine’. And the price? Roughly the same as a length of wood.
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JUNE 2021 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
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ILLUSTRATION: CLAIRE WOOD
‘Do you sometimes suspect that the word ’maritime’ puts at least 20 per cent on the price?’
