25/09/2026
Eel Pie Island and Shopping Local
During our sabbatical from Facebook over the summer, FAL visited many local businesses in places far and wide. One thing that was evident was business is hard and a lot of business owners keep saying ‘if folk stop shopping local, businesses will disappear.’
This is where Eel Pie Island comes in — a very small private island in London that has a wee slipway. FAL got an email from there to say ‘hi we have a customer thats lost a blade off his propeller and he’s looking for a replacement’. Now we had never heard of Eel Pie island before, but the usual email was sent back asking for some sizes, saying we’d see what we could do.
On the 14th of September an email was received from an American who’s boat was on Eel Pie Island, with the size of the propeller and asking what we could do for him. By the way, I need the boat back in the Thames by the 25th Sept!!’
We had all the sizes except the pitch, which the American sourced from a man in the The Netherlands, who claimed to have built the boat 50 years ago. He told him what size of propeller he originally put on the boat.
So the team set to, with their hard work and knowledge, rattling up a 900mm diameter x 900mm pitch, 4 blade right hand propeller in nickel aluminium bronze, ready to go on within a week , ready to be fitted onto the new shaft being made in Surry.
The question to the American was why not go local? The answer was that there is no one local to Eel Pie Island as they have all disappeared!!
By supporting FAL, the American has helped to employ three apprentices, three journeymen, two office staff and the cleaner, allowing us to continue supporting mariners all over the UK.
And as someone said “what would old Fred think of his local business now? Buying redundant stock from Sweden, changing the propeller through generations of knowledge (with a little help from the dutchman) to supply an American owned vessel and be fitted on a slip in a wee private island in London.
Thats shopping local for you.
