|
The Boat People, originally intended as a tongue-in-cheek name, began primarily as a raft rental service in the early 80's, and expanded into retail raft, inflatable kayak, and accessory sales by mid-1982. We published four rounds of a printed catalog called "Inflatable Kayak Specialties" between 1988, before the days of the internet, and 1996. There were already several large river gear mail order companies then, and we wanted to focus on what we knew best, which was small one and two person river craft. We've always sold rafts though along with the inflatable kayaks, and once we had a website it became much easier to display our entire line, and vastly simpler to do updates. The catalog went by the wayside since it was always out of date two weeks after being published.
We've built a reputation in the Bay Area as one of the most honest inflatable boat businesses out there, so you needn't worry about us disappearing into the netherworld of evaporating webpages with your money or credit card number.
We began out of the garage, running from our house for the first 14+ years. Then we purchased a commercial building on South First Street in San Jose, CA, where we stayed for eleven more years. The photo above shows part of the front side. In October of 2006 we sold our building, and after renting it back for six months moved northward in March of 2007 to a residential setting in the small town of Danville, CA.
We had been in the San Jose bulding, which had the store downstairs and apartments upstairs, for eleven years. This building was erected in 1925, and though it served it's purpose well with it's high 12' ceiling (great for standing up kayaks and rafts!), huge basement for storage, and rear building for rental gear, it was also something of an albatros around our necks.
A fire had destroyed most of the upper floor in 1983 before we purchased the building, and the apartments had been rebuilt and re-wired. Nice as these apartments were after the reconstruction, the prior owners of the building elected to cheap out on the plumbing aspect after their insurance settlement. Apparently the city of San Jose did not force them to re-pipe the apartment floors (which was the ceiling of the Boat People store) and walls. For most of the eleven years we were there, very complex, expensive and messy plumbing failures plagued us, and we were very concerned about staying put through another large earthquake. All the upper floor piping was brittle galvanized steel & cast iron, and there was even some really odd antique lead pipe used for sewer line. Much of this could have broken open in a big seismic event. The last major problem we had prior to moving involved one of the lead junctions, where the two drains from a pair of toilets upstairs joined. Imagine our delight to discover we had toilet water - as in raw sewage - dripping from our store ceiling. This repair required not a plumber, but a full-on construction company to sort out. And even they had trouble.
For these reasons and our desire to leave behind what had always been a rather so-so neighborhood, we decided it was time to move to a quieter area. We never had a lot of walk-in business once we got out of raft & kayak rentals in 2003, so it didn't make sense to worry over losing the large store space we had. We know some of you are put off by us not having a big display space, but we do still have most of our accessories out and about ten boats on display. Anything else can be quickly inflated with our super duper "Big Red" blower - every raft shop's best friend.
Those who are bothered by the lack of display space need to understand that renting a commercial space in this part of California is an expensive proposition. This is especially true for a business that only makes money half the year - and only good money maybe three months of the year. Without a Winter retail line we would be flushing lease payments down the toilet for extended periods each year. We would be happy to have at least a small rental space if we had the support twelve months a years, but 27 years experience shows we never will and again, a good portion of the popular items <i>are</i> out on display where we are.
After moving our original plan had been to put a building of about 1100 to 1200 square feet at the back left side of our property, and to have it ready by the Summer of 2007. This plan was stymied by the presence of a large and very old oak tree. This tree is where part of the building was going to extend, but trees of this size and age are protected by the local cities. The city of Danville did not want us coming as close to the trunk as we had planned, and after a consult with an arborist we found ourselves back to square one. Pondering for a while the effect of putting this structure in the only place Danville might allow it - a place where the it would have definitely decreased our property value - we have elected to just use the existing space we started with. It's not as handy as our old store, but it works.
All of you are welcome to come by; just understand you are not driving to a commercial location anymore. We are generally here weekdays from 9:30 to 6:00 or 6:30, and often on Saturdays. Occasionally we are also here Sunday morning. Just give us a ring at 925-820-BOAT when you want to stop by.
Our philosophy
Many whitewater websites talk of their employees using "almost everything we sell" -- which may be true enough -- but since we rented rafts and i.k's for over two decades, we've seen the worst case scenario for a lot of our inventory. Sharing our rental experiences and retail customer feedback clearly helps you compare similiar products to make an informed decision, and we don't gloss over any negative feedback we get. People who have spent any time chatting with us know this to be true.
Catalogs and webpages that only speak in a positive light for every item seem useless to us. If each little widget is perfect, which little widget should you buy? You may be shocked at the way we seem to find negatives in much of what we sell, but that does not mean they are bad products. When we recently got in a new waterproof camera case, we realized there was no way to turn the camera on & off as it was set up. Could be a problem. Should we wait until it's in your hands to let you find about about this detail? No, because then you will be unhappy, and we will be dealing with returns that could have been avoided. If there are warts or drawbacks we want you to know about them before you order. And we want you to be clear on important differences between competing products so you can make an informed decision. We also try not to be excessively negative about items we don't carry, but if something really is inferior we want you to know the reasons why. We're sailing into our 28th year now, and it's another dry one in California. We'll keep our pinkies crossed for a good snowpack (or rainfall?) for all of you.
Happy paddling! |
