We have carried just about every brand of beach wheel ever put on the market and we just picked up the PLAYABOULE EUROTRAX BRAND but we would like some feedback on what you folks feel are the best TRAX available for the money and why.



We also had a chance to meet the designed of the CATEEZ wheels and have had a long relationship with the BIG FOOT SMOOTHIE TRAX from florida Sailcraft as well as building the BEACH BARRELLS which aren't perfect but are cheap.



Give us some feedback!



Mark Michaelsen

Okay, Mark. Here's the feedback from me. You are going to be going bye-bye from this forum if you don't cease and desist. Rick is out of town, and I'm on patrol, and I haven't been taking my hormones, so I am a lot testy. You DO have your own website and your own forum, don't you, to sell your stuff? Do you do this stuff on all the other sailing websites, too? It must keep you really busy surfing around to find openings to jump in there and offer your services.

i guess a shameless plug for my engineering business is out of the question?

Mary:



If you feel you must delete us from the forum so be it. We got a chance to see the CATEEZ for the first time up close (we had always drop shipped them before) and the people at PLAYABOULE just set us up as the Los Angeles dealer so I was looking to get some feedback from the folks here on the various trax so that we might make the best recommendations possible to our customers. We also thought there might be a lively disussion here that would help inform the beach cat sailors on what gear is the best value for their money.



Do what you feel is best and have a great weekend....

Hey Mark,

With all your correspondence, did you ever get around to returning my inquiry about those boots I phoned you up for several weeks ago? Or the follow up email I left on the subject? In case you were going to 'get around to it' soon, I'm not interested any longer, so you can check that one off your 'to do' list. No hard feelings, just my season's mostly over up here.

I truly think of you as a pretty nice guy, but the shocking indifference to having consideration for Rick and Mary shown by this post leaves me kinda wondering... I mean, you could have elicited what you say you desired (feedback) by just posting "'What's your favorite Beach wheels and why?" So to follow it up with this lamo excuse and a holier-than-thou "have a nice day" - - All this *after* Mary hinted to you the other day?!



Were you trying to get in trouble!?



On the off chance you're genuinely bewildered and just don't understand how you got Mary so fired up, call me up, if your voice mail still has the number - I'm on eastern time, though...

did i mention it is mechanical engineering?

Mark,



I manage a handful of mailing lists. On all of these lists, we restrict commercial advertising, and evict people like you who don't follow the rules despite repeated warnings.



I don't think Mary is the only one who finds these posts annoying. Certainly Rick and Mary do not use their own forum to hard-sell their own goods the way that you hard-sell your goods on their forum.



Jonathan

I know making a living selling sailing gear is a very difficult way to make a living. We all owe a debt of gratitude to those who are willing to try. That being said, a line has been crossed in the opinion of the hosts of this forum, and instead of a standoff of bruised egos, why can't we just move on and get back to supporting the sport we love. Send Mary an email and make nice. Buy an ad on the classifieds and continue posting good sailing information that will benifit all of us.

Well said, Rick and Mary have every right to state the policy. But let the discussions continue without the bad mouthing. Don’t give your feedback if that your choice. Mark run an AD.

We couldn't agree more. We have tried on numerous occassions to use the automated system to purchase classified ads but the system was not functioning properly and would not process the order.



The forum is owned by Rick and Mary and when they say a line has been crossed we can respect that and we try hard to not cross the line again. I think you will find that we are generally not wearing our "BUSINESS" hat but rather wear our "SAILING" hat more often than not.



The unfortunate reality of the marine industry is that most of the profitablity is in the larger boats and gear. Less than 10% of our business now comes from beach cats but that is wear my heart will always be.



Thanks for all of the feedback (Good and bad) and we look forward to seing you all in Miami May 1st , 2003 for the Worrell 1000.

Hard sell? You MUST be kidding. We have spent thousands of hours answering technical questions, tuning questions and newbie questions on this forum and bring more than 30 years of catamaran expertise to the table.



Yes I will always provide my contact information but you have never and will never see a post on this site from me that says something like "BUY YOUR DISCOUNT CATAMARAN GEAR FROM US, WE'LL BEAT ANYONE'S PRICE" which to me is getting toward a hard sell approach. If you have spent a lot of time on the Internet you know the kind of ads I am talking about.



Your reply and comments are always welcome and appreciate you taking the time to share those thoughts with me.



Enjoy your weekend...



MM

Hi Mark,



You are right - "hard sell" was the wrong term. I also agree that you give good answers to many questions.



Personally, I have no problem with a web page in your signature. When you start mentioning what you have in stock and even what the prices are, I feel like you're trolling for customers.



It's Rick and Mary's forum, not mine, but if it were mine, that's a line that I would draw. And as a participant, I would rather see that kind of information in classified ads than in the forum.



Jonathan

Hey Mark,

Are you sure that you represent the http://www.sailingproshop.com/

It seems like each one of your adds ends with

http://www.sailingproshop.com/

Are you sure that you are not intending for us to go to

http://www.sailingproshop.com/

when you put up your post. I think that it would be better if you paid for an add in the classified section rather than placing http://www.sailingproshop.com/ in each of your posts.

Thanks, and have a nice day, and please stop ending your adds with http://www.sailingproshop.com/. It is as bad taste as a pop-up add.

Again, have a nice day at http://www.sailingproshop.com/

We agree. So far we have been unable to place a PAID AD in the classifieds due to a script error. I will go over there one more time right now and try to place an ad and see what happens.



Stand by.



MM

We just placed and ad and paid for 12 months of an ad. We would be pleased to pay for more so long as Rick and Mary are okay with it.



MM

Hey folks, I aggree that we don't want commercial ads in the forum, but let's give Mark a bit of a break, huh?
I have had several interactions with him and his shop and have been extremely gratified to find a specialty retailer with the solid business practices that he has. He has always been free with his time and his wealth of knowledge, he knows just about everything about my boat off the top of his head, and works pretty damn hard to promote small boat sailing on the West coast.
I second that he should get rid of his link and maybe come up with anoher user id, but let's not be too hard on the guy. I myself both manage a photographic arts store and serve as conference host on The Well Photo conference, so I realize how difficult it can be to share your excitement and experience without shamelessly plugging your store. I happen to think Mark is pretty good about doing so.
And no, he did not pay me for this endorsement!

I took my most stringent criticism off-line and talked directly with Mark for all the reasons you cited. He is a valuable member of our community and a fellow sailor. My personal opinion of his rebuttals to Mary's original complaint is between Mark and me.

I for one, even though as a lowly crew I only count as .5, am especially interested in Dave's mechanical engineering service. I hear he is secretly working on motorized romote control beach wheels. Just jump off the boat, hit the switch and the wheels automatically lock in on the homing device and bring the boat to you while your on the beach downing a cold one.

Motorized beach wheels ROCK! There were two sets here in Long Beach, CA for a long time. Differential, battery, momentary switch, treaded tires and your best running shoes...



MM

our best selling item is still the shotgun mount. we have sold 44 of them in the last 4 days, although i should take out an ad rather than advertising them on the open forum. the link below will take you directly to the order page.



http://www.catsailor.com/forums/sho...Limit=25&Old=allposts&Main=12157