Mack Sails in Stuart Florida is an excellent sailmaker. They do quality
work
in Florida and stand behind their product. I found their prices
competative
with the offshore stuff and I got better quality and service. For what it
is worth. For those who have the Kmart mentality, I recommend getting
some
Martha Stuart sheets ...hot glew them together....and bitch about the poor
service

Hmmm... well, I'll check into Mack Sails and see how they do. Thanks for
the lead!

As far as the "Kmart mentality" there is nothing wrong with a desire to get
value for your money, especially if you are trying to keep your family on
the water despite the costs of doing so even in a very modest way. In any
business where there's a paradigm shift happening (either as a result of
shifting technology or new business methods or new production sources) it's
quite often the case that you don't get the best value for your money just
by paying more.

I've been around boats for over 45 years and I can guarantee you that when
it comes to labor-intensive work there is no hard and fast correlation
between the price you pay for something and the service you get. There's no
end of guys who will charge you 20 hours of time to do a hack job that a
more competant craftsman could have done better in 8 to 10 hours. Anyone
who has dealt with the marine trades knows exactly what I mean. The
correlation seems to be not with price but with integrity and competance and
that has to do more with the man inside than the prices on the outside. It
always pays to ask around who's got the integrity and the skills.

By the way, I'm not on some rant against using the local talent. We've got
some really good local sailmakers and they provide a great service with lots
of personal attention and build a product that is absolutely second to none.
But, you know how it goes, not everybody can afford to fly first class and
those of us counting our pennies still want to get the best deal for the
money! I guess it's more the Costco mentality than Kmart. :-)

Regards to all,

Dimitri