EDSON Marine- unbelievable? Maybe not.....

[dennismenace111]

Originally Posted by LouK

Pulling into the dock last week during my second sail in a new to me 32 yr old sailboat, the transmission cable snapped on somewhat of a windy day. Fortunately, no damage to the boat other than my 1st mate wound up with the majority of the dock rash (ouch!) On disassembly, it was revealed that the cable had snapped where it enters the yoke on the shift lever.

It’s enclosed, its protected, out of sight, out of mind, silly to think it shouldn’t last another 30 years. So here’s the deal, my pedestal is an Edson so I call them and ask about replacement parts (yes, definitely going to replace both throttle & tranny cables, etc.) The owner, yes the owner of Edson, answers the phone, walks me through the parts I need, gives me a ‘how-to’ on extricating the two cables. So far so good I thought; I told him I’d measure up the cables this evening and call back tomorrow to complete the order.

What blew me away was that he gave me his personal cell number and said I could call him tonight if I had any difficulties in extricating the cables (apparently its not entirely as simple as it might look). I was completely gobsmacked, who provides this level of service in this day and age? Supremely grateful!

Funny but my shift cable broke similarly. In my case it was the cable end itself. I was able to borrow a tap and die set and thread the cable end down another inch. Getting back up a narrow river in Ft. Lauderdale, maneuvering while opening 5 bridges, without gear shift was entertaining at best.

[LouK]

Now that’s pretty damn clever! Hope you replaced the cable when you reached your destination.

[NSboatman]

+1 for Edson from me as well. Reid was extremely helpful and responsive, while working from home. Excellent company.

[Nicholson58]

I have ancient Edson stuff. I almost look forward now to a failure. This is wonderful. Thank you Edson!

[George DuBose]

When I rebuilt the Edson pedestal on my Pearson 36-1, I tried to thread the knurled "wheel brake" knob into one of the brake shoes.

I wrote am email to Edson and asked them what could be the problem. Did I buy the wrong brake shoes?

They wrote back that there must be another problem as they haven't changed the threads on the brake shoes since 1973.

Skylark, my Pearson 36-1 was built in 1973.

Edson send me a new knurled knob for free. That is above and beyond good service.

[Hillbilly]

I had wondered whether my own experience was a fluke resulting from unusual circumstances. When I called customer service, help was unavailable at the moment for some logical reason which I don't recall. I was told to leave a message for a callback. Not knowing Edson, I didn't have high expectations. Sure enough, the next day I received the call and the agent explained that the office was not being manned due to the virus but that he was calling from home. He preceded to give me a detailed explanation on how to thread the upper end of the new transmission cable around the steering sprocket. That was followed by some friendly chit-chat about the joy of boat maintenance. Some business school should do a study on how Edson came to develop this philosophy of service as part of their business model. Maybe it just evolved naturally, a form of survival of the fittest.