Tag Archives: Budget Marine

Chandlery Review: Budget Marine – Sint Maarten

Chandlery Reviews, ,
Expertise:5 Stars (5 / 5)
Selection:4.5 Stars (4.5 / 5)
Customer Service:5 Stars (5 / 5)
Value:4 Stars (4 / 5)
Average:4.6 Stars (4.6 / 5)

The Sint Maarten Budget Marine is their flagship store and is likely one of the best stocked chandleries I have been in and the employees will go out of their way to make sure you’re happy.

I wandered in just to check things out and knock a few items off my perpetual boat repair shopping list.  Lately we have been hard on dinghy items so we needed all new dinghy nav lights, an outboard hoist strap, dinghy wheels, UV thread and grommets.  Out of my list we weren’t able to get an outboard hoist strap large enough for our 20hp Honda (though they do have the parts to repair our old one) and they did not have UV thread for some of Diana’s sewing projects.  I did spend a significant amount of time just wandering and everything was well stocked and well organized.  It was also easy to find folks to answer questions or point you in the right direction.

My second visit is what has warranted this review.  I was troubleshooting our wind instruments in the morning. . . an ongoing saga. . . and was 90% sure the mast head wind vane was faulty.   I wandered down with my likely faulty wind vane and was not able to get a bench test to validate my findings but they did understand my problem and helped me in the way they could.  They did not have a wind vane alone in stock, but they pulled one out of a kit and ordered another to replace in that said kit.  So I got to walk away with the part I needed the same day and they also offered to return if it did not resolve my issue!  I really thanked the guy that was helping me and his response was; ‘We just need to make sure folks leave here satisfied, even if it means a bit more work on our part”.   That is ludicrous!

This is the place to grab your spares, stock up and replace all those faulty items when headed up or down island.  Thank you Lawrence, your customer service today made my week.  So far all is well with our wind instruments now that the new wind vane is installed on the mast!