2018 Wrap Up

It's fair to say that 2018 has been another whirlwind year for us here at Sailing Chandlery.

Starting the year as Dinghy Rope we rebranded in February moving to a more generic and less focussed name which could allow us to continue to grow opening new doors into the sailing market along the way.

In January we signed up to be an official Laser Performance parts and boat supplier, an amazing addition to our expanding range and we continue to ship parts around the World.

In early March the snow hit, we arrived at the Dinghy Show to set up to be told that it might be cancelled... You can imagine the look on my face! Luckily it did go ahead and it was a very good weekend for us, double the stand space from the previous year and partnering with our friends from Zhik worked well - our biggest challenge was selling two boats at the show from the Laser Performance stand, how were we going to get them back? Onto planning the 2019 show now.

As well as adding a huge range of Laser, Pico, Vago, Bahia and other Laser Performance parts into stock we have also continued to expand in other areas based on customer feedback. The newest addition are the SpeedSix carbon tiller extensions which are selling very well.

We've been on the road more this year and will continue to do so in 2019. It's great to be out meeting our customers and talking to new ones.

July and the Laser Nationals saw a panic phone call from sponsored sailor Sam Whaley, currently leading the Laser nationals and his Zhik toe strap had broken - no problem for the team here, a new one off to Sam that day to arrive before 9am the next morning. He continued to sail a great week and came away with the win!

Although we've done less sailing this year, mainly due to two young kids and a wife with a torn achilles tendant we did attend the Tornado nationals in September coming away with a very respectable 3rd place.

Sponsorships for 2018

In 2018 we sponsored the most events we ever have across a number of different fleets.

• Topper NS1 at Marconi
• Laser Thames Valley Grand Prix
• RS200 Northern Tour
• Solo Midlands Tour
• Enterprise National Circuit
• Firefly Nationals
• GJW Direct and now Selden Sail Juice Series
• East Coast Piers Race
• POSH
• Laser Open at Hunts SC
• D Zero Inlands

We also now have an army of 17 sponsored sailors across the country sailing various types of boats. They are out most weekend banging the Sailing Chandlery drum, testing new products for us and feeding back so we can improve.

For the third year in a row we've finished up as the TrustPilot number one rated sailing company - something we're very proud of.

It would seem very wrong to wrap up this article and 2018 without saying a huge thank you to all of our customers. Every day we see orders from new and existing customers and we simply wouldn't be here without you and we look forward to speaking to you in the new year.

For those of you who have signed up to our newsletter, enjoy the email hitting your inbox on new years day.