Has anyone purchased spinnaker from prolitegear.com? It's about $1 more per yard than thru-hiker's, but I have a gift certificate from prolite and would like to use it on some raw material for projects. Just wondering if anyone has any pros/cons from experience.

The price from prolite is $19 per feet, not per yard.
I used to buy it from prolite, but they sent me $19 per feet, then I return it to them.

Thanks for the warning! Their website says "sold by the continuous linear yard," did they make an effort to correct the situation with you? Such as "oops, we accidentally sent you 5 feet" or anything? If it was an accident I still might give them a try...I drive by their shop every month or so, I'll try to confirm the yard vs. foot issue. If it doesn't pan out I'll just stick with thru-hiker. Thanks again,
Nick

I email them later, they reply "The item is sold by the foot". Then I return it.

Hi miller
Hope you try to buy from prolitegear,and tell us what's wrong with it.You know Wu feels really bad,when he found it is sold by feet,some how it's just like cheating

Hey guys, I did get a chance to stop in to Prolite gear in Bozeman a couple weeks ago and took a look at their spinnaker. I talked to a nice guy who just pulled up thier website and saw the "sold by the yard" notation and said it should not have been sold by the foot. However, it certainly isn't their primary item of sale so maybe you contacted one of their employees who wasn't aware that the price should be by the yard?

At any rate, it is a very small company and they seem to only have a few employees. All of them have been helpful with my questions so far and certainly don't seem like the sort of people who would try to trick you, at least I hope not. I made them aware of your complaint that you got it by the foot so hopefully it won't happen again. If you decide not to try ordering from them again, consider giving thru-hiker a try. Many people on this website have had good experience with the guy who runs that website, Ayce. I don't know about overseas shipping though. Good luck with everything.

Hi All,

Note that the Spinntex EXP avialble from thru-hiker.com is the eact same spinnker we use at MLD and is a new 2008/2009 formulation that is superior to older spinnakers.

Also note that MLD and thru-hiker.com work together on fabric sourcing and we are the ONLY small cpmpanies currently that have an in-house certified ASTM water resistance pressure testing machine (from germany $$$) to insure standards in what you get.

Peace,
Ron

thanks for that info Ron, I've been contemplating where to buy my spinnaker for an upcoming tarp.

Good to know Ron. I had seen the EXP designation on the thru-hiker site but since I didn't have the two to compare I wasn't sure whether the Prolite stuff was comparable. (and from the sounds of it I wouldn't be able distinguish with the naked eye anyway?) At any rate, I'm glad I ended up using the Prolite gift certificate on some soft shell pants and decided to get the Spinnaker from thru-hiker.

It is always possible that there has been a big misunderstanding here.

I would interpret 'sold by the foot' to mean you can specify how much you want by the foot. Like maybe seven feet.
And I would interpret '$19/yd' as meaning just that.

So 7 feet at $19/yd should cost $44.33.

Of course, if whoever filled out the order did the calculations wrongly ... anything is possible. We don't know.

Cheers

Considering I paid $17/yd for my spinnaker (from BPL'er Mike M.) I have trouble believing that Prolite would be selling their for 3x as much. I suppose I could just walk over there and ask them in person but it's kind of rainy out today and I've got some good tunes playing out of the computer speakers.

Sam, repeat after me .... Rain is just another kind of good weather.

Just to clarify, Prolite did confirm that the price is per linear yard, both over the phone and in person. However, I also don't want to dismiss Wu's complaints out of hand because I have no reason to disbelieve him. I'm going to guess that Roger is right in thinking it's either a miscommunication or simply a billing error.