Home | Boats for sale - Search | Boat Archive | I.T Services | Boat Art | News and Articles | 
RSS
Item posted: Monday 8th April , 2013
Jonny bought a rigging screw off eBay. A bronze one, to go with his beautiful wooden ketch.
eBay and internet shopping is full of horror stories. I’m more of a saver than a spender in general, but when I do buy things, I tend to research them (for ages!) before buying online as opposed to in the shops. My internet shopping experience to date has taught me quite a bit; for example, I tend to avoid retailers that use ‘Home Delivery Network’ as their shipping provider. Their delivery drivers tend to have a bad reputation anyway, so try giving them an address that includes the word ‘Yacht’ in it and they don’t even bother.
If we haven’t experienced internet-shopping-gone-wrong ourselves, we’ve certainly heard stories about it from friends. But we’re well into a decade of online shopping now, and most of us have got the hang of it.
Jonny’s always buying bits for his boat from eBay. It helps that he has the kind of boat that naturally suits the vintage type of ‘stuff’ you can find on eBay. I just love the ironic juxtaposition of near-antiques being sourced using the type of technology their destined classic wooden boat, and owner, generally eschews.
“Where did you get that pirate chest from?”
“That was from eBay.”
“Hey, that’s an awesome wooden block, where from?”
“Err... eBay.”
“I like your canvas sack, that’s new, where did you get it - wait, eBay!”
“Yep.”
So I rolled my eyes a little when we walked up to the marina office the other afternoon to check for the arrival of, no doubt, Jonny’s latest eBay purchase. Sure enough, there was a package for him to pick up. But it was about to unfold into a bit of a mystery.
When the marina staff handed the package over to us, it was massive. Actually massive. It weighed a ton. It was huge, and very long. And we had no idea what it was... because the only thing Jonny had ordered recently was the bronze bottle screw.
As it turned out, Jonny had unwittingly bought an extremely large bottle screw, suitable for a boat twice the size of his. There was no indication of size in the photo on the eBay listing, and he hadn’t read the dimensions.
At least it was bronze and looks pretty cool. But don’t give him any ideas... his next eBay search will be for 70ft ketches to make use of the damn thing!
