Interesting spot online with a limited and inexpensive selection

[beshman2]

I ran across this Yahoo site: http://store.marinepartdepot.com/ the other day while searching for some cleats to replace the black nylon ones that came stock on my CP 16.  It seemed like a strange site, but it offers Paypal payments and I have a Paypal account that I keep almost nothing in.  I figured I would risk it and ordered just over the $20.00 needed for free shipping.  Three days later I had the parts delivered stuffed in a USPS Priority Mail envelope with some bubble wrap.  They survived, look great, and are nicely polished, but I have no idea how they will hold up in the long term.  For the prices, I will take the chance.  For reference, a 4" Hereshoff cleat is $2.99 and a 6" is $4.99 (I needed two 4" and three 6" for my boat).  The 6" cleat is $12.01 or so at Jamestown Distributors.  This may be offshore stuff that will not last long, but I am willing to test it.  The site has a big "Sale ending today" plastered on the front page, but I have looked at it several times over the last few days and the prices have not changed.  No affiliation, just seems like a good price for stainless products. 

[Craig Weis]

How come this stuff is so cheap?

A rough, porous casting that will break or a hot hit forge that will bend and not  break before it's ripped out of it's landing.

I always worry about hardware being porous.

You see as a H.S. swimmer a teammate left the starting block at pool's edge only to have the two shoulder bolts holding the block at pools edge sheer off and the starting block rocketed backward.

The result was that the swimmer lost balance falling to the bottom of the pool breaking his neck and spending the rest of his life in a wheel chair.

The nice looking chromed thick bolts with huge shoulders holding the block down had voids and irregular grain in the metal that I could see when holding both sheered parts in my hand.

The next meet all fasteners were machined from a billet. Too late to avoid the law suit.

A very hard lesson to learn indeed. skip.