Walked into a marina supply store I hadn't been to in 10 years and they still had the same dusty rolls of electrical tape from 2014 behind the counter.

Stopped by O'Connell's Marine Supply in Norfolk last weekend and saw a roll of that tape with a $2.99 sticker from the Obama administration, made me miss when you could actually talk to the owner about bilge pump placement instead of scanning a QR code to order online, anyone else finding their local spots are fading out?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_nina8d ago

That $2.99 tape probably still works fine though, electrical tape doesn't really go bad. My trick is to always ask the old timers at the counter about what they use on their own boats, not what's on the shelf. At my local spot in Portsmouth, the guy behind the counter still keeps a logbook of who bought what and why going back to 2008, he'll pull it out and show you exactly what failed on someone else's Chris-Craft and why a certain brand of heat shrink sucks. If you can find that one person who still treats inventory like they're stocking for their own boat, that's the real goldmine.

wren9767d ago

My uncle used to keep a spiral notebook behind the counter at his hardware store with customer names and what they fixed their boats with, got real particular about which brand of silicone caulk he'd even sell after seeing too many deck leaks come back. Found it in a box after he passed and those notes were like reading a secret history of every mooring failure in the harbor.