On Thursday, October 19, 2017 at 4:40:38 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Thu, 19 Oct 2017 15:59:11 -0400,
wrote:


One of our casualties from hurricane Irma was a large inflatable
fender (bumper to you Harree) made by Taylor, and purchased from West
Marine at some time in the distant past. This fender had seen a lot
of rough usage over many years and looked every bit of it, but worst
of all it would no longer stay inflated. That makes it worthless of
course. This particular fender was one of the largest that WM sells
(12 x 34) and a new one was going to be about $150. However,
somewhere in the back of my mind I seeemed to recall that Taylor
fenders had a lifetime warranty. So I took it back to West Marine
today on the off chance that they might replace it. The old one
looked so bad that I kind of felt guilty dragging it into the store
and plopping it on to the service counter. No problem as it turned
out. There is indeed a lifetime warranty, and a short time later I
walked out of the store with a brand new one.

I wonder if they would swap out some of the ones I find floating. Some
are getting pretty long in the tooth. I don't think I have ever bought
a fender and I have about a dozen.
When I see people riding around with fenders over the side, I think to
myself "that's a nice one, I wonder how long it will be until I find
it in the mangroves".
It seems the land lubbers who leave their fenders out are the same
ones who never learned to tie a decent knot.

Seeing fenders over the side underway is a pet peeve of mine. It screams "I boat twice a year"! Once on Memorial Day, and once on the 4th. I have towed more than one in to the marina.