[mikeyt]

Just a little info for y'all..

After reading that 1996 Earls Court Boat Show document showing the Mariah advertisement on our website i figured it might be worthwhile to send the dealer (Southwater Marine near Southampton in England) an email just to see if they might have some new old stock of parts still laying around in their inventory. I got a response from a David Allen at Southwater and I've cut & pasted my email & their response below. I'm going to respond to him so if anyone has any specific questions feel free to PM me. I figured he might have a little background on Mariah's closing or possibly some of the factory operations / model differences etc since he says he spent some time at Benton.



Hi Mike,

Thanks for your email. I put it to one side to reply to when I had a chance..... hmmmmmm... bad time of year to do that!

It was quite a trip down memory lane to look at your site as we sold many hundreds of Mariahs and I used to spend a great deal of time at Benton.

We are pretty much out of old Mariah parts now, the main issue we ever have though is getting Taylors to sort out glass for screens. The last one was nice and embarrassing - told us we could no longer have glass for a 275 so we relayed it to the client. He then called them direct and they shipped it no trouble.

How do you get on with Taylors and glass?

Not sure if you knew any of the old crew at Mariah but I caught up with Pearl Hamilton recently.

Kind regards,

David G. Allen
www.southwater.com

****************************
At 15:00 29/02/2008,

Hi David

I saw an old advertisement for the 1996 Earls Court boat show that indicated you were a dealer for the original Mariah boats. I'm a member of the Mariah Owners Club ( www.mariahownersclub.com) and we have a few members in Britain & Europe who are always on the look out for parts specific to the original Mariah boats. Do you still have any Mariah parts / decals / trim pieces etc in your parts inventory? and if you do, can you tell us what you may have? If so, i will pass your information on to our membership so that they may contact you.

mike thompson

[WetWilly]

Hey MikeyT,

Sorry to here he didn't have any parts, especially the windshields!

Great effort on your part! Keep up the good work, we'll find parts eventually, it's just a matter on perseverance and time.

Keep thinking happy thoughts, keep thinking happy thoughts, Keep thinking happy thoughts,
WetWilly

[mikeyt]

ok, i wuz a little impatient and wanted to respond to David Allen so here's what i sent him. In the event any of our English / European members (Ed Cossey, Bakdraft, Il Mio, Harry van Kesteren etc) are ever in the Southampton area, please stop by Southwater Marine and introduce yourself to David as a Mariah Club member. You never know where it might lead.....


Hi David

Thank you for the thoughtful response. We have the same problem with Taylor's too. I spent a fair bit of time trying to find a windshield glass for my 180 Shabah a couple of years ago and they were not particularly helpful and a couple of the others in our club have had the same problems with them. I gave up trying & had one made from acrylic (which has done the job quite well) until I can find what I need.

I'm glad our site was able to provide a bit of a 'memory trip' for you. Much like the classic car scene in England we are doing our best to keep the memories alive. A number of our members were able to visit the Benton location but unfortunately I wasn't one of them. We are always trying to find out more information and background on the original Mariah boats as well as locating sources of 'new old stock' parts to post on our website so if you have any old brochures, pictures, information etc that you would be willing to share with us that would be greatly appreciated! We're a young club (formed in July 2007) but we've grown to just over 400 members in less than a year as we keep trying to spread the word that the original Mariah may be gone but has not been forgotten. It's surprising (then again maybe not) how many people who own these boats still speak so highly of them and the amount of admiring looks they get when on the water and at the docks.

Please feel free to stop by our site at any time and have another look around! We would love to hear about what is was like at Benton, the people who worked there, the boats themselves and maybe a little insight into the marketing strategies of the different Mariah models through the 1990's. There's always a little confusion about the differences between the Shabah / Diablo / Barchetta / Talari / Davanti lines and what they were aimed at. Hope to speak with you again.

Take Care

mike thompson
cambridge, ontario, canada

(mikeyt) at www.mariahownersclub.com

[dudders]

Great letter Mike, I hope you get a favourable response, thanks for going to all the effort for the boys.

[roger rowley]

Hi mike just came across your corresponds with David Allen [2008] of Southwater marine Southampton U K.
He is a very nice man, I got my shahara 238 in 2008 from Essex boat yards .
The torni cover pole was missing, On the cover was a label Southwater marine with a phone number
I rang them up and got David asked if he had a pole he said whats the hull number I told him
said he sold it new in 2001 and had fond memories of Mariah and sent me a copy of the original paperwork for [ V A T tax if i ever was to go to Europe]. He even sent me the pole for free thats what I call after sales service 7 years on.
Just went onto there web site there no longer trading thats sad,will try to track him down.

[mikeyt]

It was sad to find out that Southwater Marine went under either late last year or early this year. David is a true gentleman and i wish him the best.