Anyone know anything about Precision Sail Loft? - Page 3

Morgan30Sailor · #21 01-20-2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by unrealreality

I am glad that a local was able to speak with someone there.

Could you please ask or explain the following then?

1. Why do they state they have a loft but when you go to that address there is nothing there?

2. Why is it when you call directory assistance, there is no listing for the company?

3. Why is it the company has no business license?

4. Why does the company advertise a 3-year warranty but then hidden inside the site it says they warrant absolutely nothing? Yeah, that is a limited warranty I guess.

5. Why must you defer your rights to sue to a court in Los Angeles?

6. Why does a company that supposedly has sophisticated design software appear to have stolen the sail design drawings on their site from other lofts?

I really couldn't care how nice or "knowledgeable" these "people" appear to be. This operation is a sham in every way. My guess? There is one guy named Darryl with a cellphone and that's it. The whole thing is probably nothing more than a front for some unknown Chinese factory.

Buyers, Beware!

To "UNREAL"

i phoned them using the number on their site, and i don't have any more pull with the phone company than you do...

if you want to be so confrontational, may i politely suggest you make your own phone call...

unrealreality · #22 01-20-2013

Morgan30.

I am not being confrontational at all.

I simply thought if you were talking to this outfit, you may want to get these issues squared away before your spent your money. Or at least get some of these questions answered and let us know. Isn't that what you said in your first post anyways?

If you are not concerned about any the discrepancies, then go for it. But you live there and I am a little surprised that you wouldn't jump in your car and take a look.

I have no problems with a sail made in China. Heck, they are either made there, Sri Lanka, Mexico or Thailand. Doyle, Neil Pryde, Hyde, Ullman, and Quantum orders end up there all the time. And worse, many of them with the same company.

Granted, I am not a big poster here. But I hope it is more than just a coincidence that you make your first post ever to extol the virtues of an organization that is guilty of false advertising at the minimum.

I have seen some real nice sails come out of China. And I have also seen some real garbage.

A lot has to do with who owns and operates the lofts there. Some of them do not know the difference between a shirt or sail.

Morgan30Sailor · #23 01-21-2013

Dear Unreal:

Thank you for your suggestions on how i should handle my business.

IMHO (but you're welcome to your HO), the way you worded your "suggestions" were confrontational. Even the apparent research you've done indicates that you already know the answers to your questions and and (IMHO again) you could be just poking the bear. (For example, how do you know they don't have a business license? How do you know there is no directory listing? i mean, why go to a directory listing when the phone number is on the site...unless you're already digging, that is...)

Methinks (IMHO) you may even be a (bitter) competitor, hoping to sow seeds of discontent. True, you make a few interesting points, but then again, i may ask why you even made the posting? It really contributes little...

and BTW, i'm not terrifically enthusiastic about carrying on this conversation, either. So as far this exchange between you and i go, as they say on "Dragons Den" (or "Shark Tank"), i'm out

Precision Sails Ltd · #24 01-22-2013

Hello everyone,

First off I hope this isn’t against the SailNet posting guide lines. This is not meant to be an advertisement for Precision Sails but in order for us to address everyone’s concerns and questions I will need to write about us.

Please let me start off by saying your concerns are our concerns and we would like to address each and every one of them.

Thank you to everyone who has added value to this post. We have added lots of new content to our website that will hopefully settle any concerns. Check out our updates and make sure to scroll down on our home page:

We have updated the following pages to address your concerns on our site:
-Home page
-How to Order page
-Warranty page
-Terms & Conditions page
-Image Gallery page

I have tried to addressed all concerns below from this thread:

Company Address and Location
Our address is listed in the footer of every page.

Our head office is located at the address online and it is not meant for the general public to show up. Drop-ins are for clients only. If you are one of our clients we would be happy to show you around. We are set up this way so that we can provide clients with the greatest value sails possible.

Warranty
It seems we overlooked a few pages in our site design that were automatically generated by our shopping cart. The references you saw on the Terms and Conditions page are completely inaccurate and do not reflect our sail warranty in any way. This includes both the “Warranty Disclaimer” and the “Miscellaneous” clause that were mentioned earlier in this thread.

We have updated our terms and conditions, now named Website Legal Statement, to reflect our real policy properly. The terms and conditions are for the USE of our website and the USE of our sails. This basically says if you use our sails then run ashore, sink your boat, etc we are not to be held liable. It also covers things relating to improper website pricing and content.

You can read the updated terms by clicking “Website Legal Statement” in our footer.

As for our product warranty, we have updated and created a new page specifically explaining our product warranty.

You can read our full product warranty by click “Sail Warranty” in our footer.

For your convenience I have also included it below:

- 3 Year Limited Warranty against material and workmanship defects.
- 1 Year Warranty on both Acrylic and Dacron UV Protection. UV Protection is designed to be sacrificed to the weather instead of your sail. This makes it very difficult to warranty after 1 year.

Sail Cloth
Thank you Marty (blt2ski) and Judy (jblumhorst) for adding value to this post.

Our website has thousands of sail listings and many options to go with it. When you adjust the LP of a headsail it will not adjust the product description associated with the product. The product description and the sail cloth weight is based on the area of our 130% LP sail not length of a boat. To calculate the area of a head sail the LP is required. To complete your sail design, both area and size of boat is taken into consideration. We are currently working on a way to adjust the displayed sail weight with options but at this time our site does not do this. Thank you for pointing this out.

There are many factors that go into sail design, many of which are not shown on the website. We make all kinds of decisions when building your sail including slider size, size and material type of bolt rope, leech and foot line cleats, size of headboard, tack and clew corner rings and construction method, batten pocket sizes, seam types, thread types, and a whole lot more. We also make adjustments to the sail cloth weight when necessary.

Another words, the website cannot possibly account for every variable but that certainly does not mean these things are not factored into your sail design. There are many questions that must still be asked like what type of sailing you do? Where do you sail? Thanks Marty for pointing these out. These things all have an impact in the final sail cloth weight and sail design. Sometimes our clients get upgraded to the next weight of cloth, sometimes it stays the same and other times it goes down a bit.

What sailcloth is used in building our sails?
You can read all about the sail cloth used in our standard dacron cross cut sails on the Challenge Sailcloth website. We have links on our “Cloth” page of our site.

Now as for the comments coming from UnrealReality:

1. We state clearly in our footer where our office is located.

2. Our phone number is toll free and has not been listed in any phone book and is therefore not in directory assistance. Our customers mainly find us online and we see no benefit in directory assistance.

3. We do have a business license and are an incorporated company. Precision Sails Ltd.

4. And 5. These were addressed earlier in this post.

“6. Why does a company that supposedly has sophisticated design software appear to have stolen the sail design drawings on their site from other lofts?”

All Website graphics were built by our graphic designer from scratch. I’m not sure if you are aware of the difference between graphic design and sail design. Graphic design makes the pictures you see on our website. This is much different than sail design which calculates the luff, leech, foot, and curves, performance, etc of a sail. We use sail design to design our clients sails. Our website product images on the other hand, were created with graphic design programs as they are images.

Getting a hold of us
Please make sure to call during business hours If you are outside of business hours leave a message. We are open 7 days a week from 9am-7pm PST. We are open longer hours and more days of the week than any sailmaker we have seen before. We try not to miss any calls but if all of our staff are busy be sure to leave us a message and we will call you right back.

That said, we track all incoming and out going telephone calls. We typically call people back who do not even leave a message. In one instance a competitor was a little surprised to receive a phone call back form us. Our telephone system has monitoring features with call tracking applications so we can help our clients in the best possible way. I have looking into all missed calls from the Seattle area and missed calls from people that called back multiple times. Frankly, I could not see anything in our call logs indicating someone trying to get a hold of us over an extended period of time from the same phone number.

=== Update.

We have taken all of your comments seriously and have made another major upgrade to our site. We hope this makes it more clear as to exactly what you get when you purchase a sail from us.

We have updated the following:

- New Sail Cloth Page to explain everything there is to know about the sail cloths we use.

- Updated all Cross Cut Dacron sails to show the exact specifications of cloth including material weight and cloth name.

I hope this addressed everyone’s concerns. Please feel free to call us anytime.

We look forward to building your next sail!

Thank you,
Darryl Hodgson
Precision Sails Ltd

PaulinVictoria · #25 01-22-2013

Hi Darryl,
An interesting discussion for sure, I'm glad you found this thread as there are lots of Internet witch-hunts that usually end up somewhat one-sided. It's good to see another local sail option alongside the established lofts in the area. I'd certainly be interested to get a look at some of your sails sometime as my old tub is getting to the point of needing new ones. I'm looking at all options at the moment and have some personal attachment to a particular loft (I race on the owner's boat) and frankly price is the only thing that would persuade me to purchase from anyone other than them.

KnottyGurl · #26 01-22-2013

Unreality,,,.,., Really??
Sounds like a big chip on your shoulder, that kind of harboured toxicity can't be good.
As a current client it's all good and I am looking forward to my new set of sails this summer.
Grab a sundowner and relax ,,
Bill

Geoff54 · #27 01-22-2013

Hello Darryl - thanks for coming here to present your point of view.

Can you please tell us where your sails are made?

Who makes them for you or if you make them yourselves, what is your background and experience?

Sorry to be a doubter but there have been one or two less than honest sail retailers (I won't call them lofts) who looked great until there was a problem.
And I must admit that only registering your domain for a year and through a proxy does make me suspicious?

Thanks

Geoff

jblumhorst · #28 01-22-2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Precision Sails Ltd

Hello everyone,
<...>
What sailcloth is used in building our sails?
You can read all about our sail cloth used in our standard cross cut sails on the Challenge Sailcloth website. We have links on our “Sail” page of our site or you can look up Challenge Sailcloth on Google.

If you would like a specific link go to the challenge sail cloth website and follow instructions below:
Click "Sailmakers"
Click "Dacron"
Click "High Mass Fiber Weaves"
<...>
Thank you,
Darryl Hodgson
Precision Sails Ltd

I don't find this answer about their selection of sailcloth credible. And, to me, that's a significant issue, because a sail is only as good as the cloth it's make from.

Precsion Sailoft's website says they build their sails from
5.2 oz Premium Challenge Dacron
6.5 oz Premium Challenge Dacron
7.6 oz Premium Challenge Dacron
etc.

Challenge doesn't make High Mass Fiber Weave in those weights.

Buyers should make sure they're getting what they bargained for. Don't pay top dollar for vaguely described sailcloth. Ask for a precise description of what you're paying for.

PS. Bainbridge, a well known company, makes cloth in those weights. but they don't make any high mass weaves.

jblumhorst · #29 01-22-2013

Quote:

Originally Posted by Geoff54

Hello Darryl - thanks for coming here to present your point of view.

Can you please tell us where your sails are made?

Who makes them for you or if you make them yourselves, what is your background and experience?

Sorry to be a doubter but there have been one or two less than honest sail retailers (I won't call them lofts) who looked great until there was a problem.
And I must admit that only registering your domain for a year and through a proxy does make me suspicious?

Thanks

Geoff

I'm a doubter too. Geoff asked an important question or two.

These days, anybody with a credit card can start reselling sails from offshore lofts. All it takes is a good copy writer, a marketing plan, a few grand to pay a programmer, a few grand for google advertising, and like magic, can call yourself a sailmaker and sell sails to people.

Some sail-resellers play fast and loose with truth about sailcloth because they think customers don't know enough to tell the difference. They deliberately use bogus cloth weights and descriptions so they don't get caught in any direct lies. It's good for their profits if they can sell knock-offs at genuine name-brand prices.

I disagree with them. I think sailmakers ought to tell the truth, the whole truth and nuthin' but the truff, so help me God.

I use the same ecommerce hosting service that Precision Sails does (Volusion.com), and I manage to program it so my quotes don't mislead buyers. IMO, all online sailmakers are obligated to present their merchandise to the public in a truthful and non-misleading way.

"The programmer made me do it" or "t's too hard to write accurate quotes" is not a valid excuse for misleading advertising, IMO.

The way I run my own business,I consider a quote is an offer to sell a specific product at a specific price. When a customer puts the product in his e-cart and pays for it, it's a binding contract. Of course, all sailmaker's intial quotes have a disclaimer saying that quotes are subject to verification of dimensions, but that's about it.

I fully disclose who I am and the source of my sails on my website. I have a couple of tabs right on the front page of my website that tell customers where their sails are built. You can click on the link in my sig to prove to yourself that its possible to do truthful quotes via the Volusion ecommerce, if you put some effort into to.

(BTW, I am a commercial advertiser on Sailnet, so the mods have advised me that I'm allowed to post a link to my commercial website in my sig. )

smackdaddy · #30 01-22-2013

I love these kinds of threads. I look forward to Precision's follow-up to Geoff's questions - and to feedback from those waiting on their sails.