Once in a while it has to be about good news… first one is about Valley.
I just put Jim’s Nordlow on sawhorses in the back yard. Due to getting a new furnace followed by his other boats being a safer idea to paddle after he got ill, it has been living on a rack in a friend’s back yard since early 2014. But I am going to come out this coming season with my roll back to where it was, good on both sides and it worked in surf, so I can have some fun with this boat. It is officially a little big for me, but so responsive that when I had a shot at it there wasn’t anything it wouldn’t do for me easily…
This boat was a brand new replacement for a boat that Jim originally got used out of Wickford, said used boat had quite the history but my understanding is they finally destroyed the thing because it had fatal layup problems. No hit on Valley, it happens, but this used boat had a longer life than it should have after the error was first discovered. Jim’s replacement boat was Peter Norton at Valley reaching out to remedy their distributor’s error. The best part of that story was at the same time there was another Nordlow out there with similar questionable issues. Matt Bowler if I recall correctly. Peter Norton replaced that one with a new boat as well. They strictly speaking did not have to replace either boat, but they did.
Second neat news is about Talic. For 18 years their stands have supported our/my boats in Maine on a small beach nearest the rental cabin. In most high tides the rear ones get water on them, but it is well protected so it is only the highest tides that are a reason to move the boats. These were actually the original ones they made, and over the years three of them have gone back to get the rope cord holding the sides together replaced with a more robust connector. Never been charged for it, or even the cost to mail them back to us.
The last one went in Maine this year. I called up Talic last week to confirm when they would be around on Saturday because there was a chance I would be in the area, figured I could drop it off to them. A few days later I got a call from one of the owners, not only had they paid attention to my wanting to drop off the stand but with enough attention to let me know they would be at the Tomato Fest on that day. One option offered was to drop it off on someone’s front porch.
This is truly person service, and happily you can still find it in paddling. And it is darned hard to find these days.