Tampa Boatyard

Tampa Bay boatyard
We didn’t go to a boatyard in Tampa or even in the bay but we ended up about 5 miles down the ICW from Tampa Bay at a place called Snead Island Boat Works. We decided to go there because they actually had a crane. We needed a crane because after our last sail with the mast “shrinking” again we decided that there was a problem not with the hull or mast step but with the mast itself and it needed to come out.
We had talked to several boat yards and Snead Island was the only one that had their own crane, they were also highly recommended on several websites. I talked to the yard manager on the phone before we arrived and told him that we needed to have the mast pulled and that I wanted to do some of the work myself. After a bit of chit chat and telling him that I had worked in a boat yard for 5 years he said this would be OK. Quite a few boat yards won’t let you do any major repairs on your own boats, I think the main reason for this is because of liability issues.
We arrived late in the afternoon and softly ran aground trying to dock on the wall outside off the marina. One of the yard managers came out and told us that we needed to come into the basin and dock on the wall that was just thru the entrance and 10 feet to the left where it was deeper. We spun back into the open bay and slowly approached the narrow entrance to their marina and put the boat into reverse, which we had recently discovered pushed the stern to starboard and the bow to port. (which means the back of the boat went right and the front went left).
Julie was standing at the middle of the boat with a line that she threw to the man waiting on shore who wrapped it around a cleat and stopped us.
The yard manger, Steve, came over and talked to us about everything we needed to do to get ready to pull the mast in the morning. Julie and I spent the next 2 hours loosening shrouds, removing the boom and other hardware plus disconnecting wires for the instruments and lights that are on the mast.
8:30 the next morning we heard the crane pull up and we grabbed Ziggy and got off of the boat. Being a person that is not capable of staying away from “the action” I ended up back on the boat to help the yard manager, Steve, attach the cable from the crane to a piece of webbing which was wrapped around the mast. Next we tied a rope thru the webbing and the crane operator reeled in the cable which slid the webbing up the mast to a point a little more than half way up the mast. We then tied the rope onto the winches on the mast which kept the webbing from sliding any further up the mast.
I volunteered to go below to help guide the mast thru the cabin to keep it from banging in to things. Next there was discussion between Steve and the crane operator such as “boom up”, swing left” to get the crane lined up with the mast and then “cable up” which is the command to start the process of lifting the mast out of the boat.
The mast stuck a little as the crane started to lift it. You could tell because the boat lifted just a little maybe an inch and then when the mast “popped”. In a previous life working in a boat yard I helped pull to a hundred masts but had never had this happen. As the mast came out from the darkness of the bilge I could see that the base of it was jagged, looking kind of like piece of torn paper. This would explain everything, the shortening of the mast causing the loose rigging without the base of the mast moving down. When the mast was pulled up thru the deck I asked Steve if he had ever seen this before. He told me that he had a handful of times and that it was not that uncommon on older boats. The crane swung the mast over to the side and it was laid down on saw horses.




















Mast out of the boat


With the mast laying down we were able to look into it and saw that the aluminum on the inside of the mast had never been painted or treated in any manor from the factory. This lack of any protective coating allowed saltwater to attack and finally corrode enough of it away so that it was weaker than the loads generated when we ran aground causing it to crumble. The mast was pitted and pretty heavily corroded up to about 4” inside the mast.
A little later I found a piece of the original mast about 1 ½” tall and 1/3 of the original diameter on the ground next to where the mast was set down. It must have been wedged inside when the mast crumbled and fell out as it was being lowered. It was very corroded and by my estimation weighed less than half of what it should have.
Looking inside of the mast step I found a mixture of sludge and crumbled aluminum about 3 inches deep. I scooped it out, cleaned the step which is an oval shaped stainless steel plate with vertical collar welded to it in the shape of the mast. There were six ½” bolts sticking up out of the bottom of the bilge that were used to hold the mast step in place.
Steve said the way to fix it was to cut off the bad part of the mast and build the mast step up the amount that we cut off of the mast. Cutting off everything that was bad would leave a strong mast, building up the area under the mast step would leave the mast the same height. This made sense and I agreed to the idea, he said he would stop by later with a Skilsaw to chop the mast base down and take a look to see what could be done to build the mast step up.



















Mast chunk on left - Chopped off piece on right



I had worked thru a couple of ideas and called my very good friend and long time sailing and boat modifying buddy Jack to bounce a couple of ideas off of him. I asked him what he thought the load on the mast was and he guessed 30,000 lbs after I gave him the size and weight of the boat.
With that guess under our belt Jack asked for the dimensions of the mast cross section and the thickness of the mast (for those of you that don‘t know, aluminum masts on boats are not solid, they are hollow) our mast is 9” from front to back, 7” wide and 3/16” thick.
Jack calculated the total number of square inches and multiplied it by the strength of aluminum and divided by 3 for the safety margin designers put in “just in case” all in his head and came up with a number that was close to his original guess.
This information was important so I could use a material strong enough so that it wouldn’t compress under the loads of the mast. 30,000 pounds is quite a force but the base of the stainless steel mast step is oval measuring 11” by 13”. Roughly, the base of the step has an area of 140 square inches. Dividing 30,000 lbs by 140 square inches gives 214 lbs per square inch. To put this number in perspective, if a 120lb woman wearing high heels puts all of her weight on one heel that is ½” by ½” she is asserting 480lbs per square inch on the floor (½ X ½ = ¼ Square inch with 120 lbs of force on it, multiply this 120 by 4 to get the force generated on 1 square inch and you get 480 lbs per square inch). This was not an insurmountable task.
Steve showed up on his lunch hour and cut the mast base off which took a few minutes, he then came below and looked at the mast step. He suggested using pieces of mahogany marine plywood with waterproof glue stacked up with layers of fiberglass matte (which is kind of like felt) between each layer.
I agreed and he had his ship’s carpenter cut me enough pieces to account for the 5 ½ “ of mast that was gone.
I cleaned out the bilge and ground away the surface of the fiberglass where the plywood was going to be stacked to give a good clean bond area and since it was now 6:00 we called it a day.
When we first arrived at the yard we told them we were going to have the mast pulled and go anchor in the harbor to work on the boat. They suggest we just stay on their seawall and use their facilities, we took them up on this without a second thought.
We had dinner and went off to their shower facilities which were quite nice. We have a shower on the boat that works just fine. The water is heated via a 20 gallon or so water heater in the bilge which is heated thru the “radiator” on the engine or by regular old 120V AC. But showering on most boats is kind of like showering in a closet that also has the head ( toilet) and sink, so showering on shore is always a treat.
The next morning I laid down 3 layers of fiberglass cloth on the bottom of the bilge where the new plywood base was going to go plus an additional 4 inches around the area to tie the new mast step into the hull, these 3 layers were about 3/16” total. I bolted down the first layer of plywood and plenty of epoxy oozed out ensuring a good solid bas and bond. Each additional piece of plywood was coated on all sides with epoxy to keep water out and another layer of fiberglass matte was place between each layer to ensure the strongest buildup possible. I secured each layer to the one below with matte and epoxy with 20 drywall screws.
With 8 layers of the Okum marine plywood installed I had regained the 5 ½ “ that had been cut off of the mast. I added 4 layers of fiberglass ( 8 oz biaxial with matte if you really must know) to make a solid bed for the stainless steel mast step and called it a day.
We were low on provisions so I grabbed my back pack and hiked 2.8 miles to the meat market and another ¼ mile to the produce stand and returned to the boat almost 2 hours later with 20 pounds of great stuff and demanded a back rub. Yes I can be quite the whiner.
Around 10:00 the next morning they re-stepped the mast and we spent most of the rest of the day reattaching shroud, electronics and the rest of the stuff that goes in and around the mast. We finished up around 3 in the afternoon and decided to stay until the morning, just so we could relax a little bit and use their showers again.
We had installed a 4 cubic foot fridge/freezer which is about 3 times the size of a dorm fridge while we were here. We used about 15lbs of ice per day at about $4.00 per day so spending $178.00 at Lowes for this fridge had a fairly quick payback. The fridge was about 1” too wide to get down below so we gut off some of the main hatch trim and glued it back on after we got the fridge down. There is a seat in the hallway heading back towards the aft cabin that was a waste of space and fortunately the fridge fit in the space with about ¼” to spare.
The next morning I remembered that our stuffing box was still leaking, I talked to Steve about borrowing a couple of 3” open end wrenches ( aka huge mongo wrenches) to adjust the stuffing box. He chuckled and said “you don’t do it that way, I’ll send someone over to show you”. 30 minutes later one of the mechanics stopped by with a pair of Channel Locks ( great big pliers ) and a hammer.
This guy whacked the lock nut a few times with the hammer and it broke free from the cap nut, he then spun the cap nut down until it stopped leaking. It took him 3 minutes with $30.00 worth of tools to do what I had not been able to accomplish over 3 hours with $50.00 worth of tools I had purchased for the job. So much for what I know.
With the mast and stuffing box done we were excited to get going, our problems were behind us and the forecast was great. Julie turned the key to start the engine and nothing happened.
I asked if she had turned the key and she gave me that look. I asked her to turn it again and when nothing happened again I almost snapped or maybe I did.
We had just spent 3 days repairing the collapsed mast base. Just before that we had rebuilt the starter on the gen-set. Before that we had replaced the headsail that tore itself up in Charleston. Before that we had replaced the alternator on the Yanmar diesel. Before that we had replaced the batteries. Before that we had repainted the boat. Before that we had rebuilt the rudder.
We were going thru money like a drunk sailor. Coincidence????? I think not.
Going back to being a kid working on cars with my dad, I decided to start with some of the basics: a starter is nothing but an electric motor that turns the engine fast enough to get the pistons to start firing, at which time the engine is running and you step on the gas and go.
I went to the engine room and had Julie turn the key again. I heard the distinct click of the solenoid, or Bendix, pulling in, which should provide the required power to make the starter run. The next step was to check the power cables coming in to the starter to see if they were loose. Great news, the first wire I wiggled, the main wire to the starter was incredibly loose.
I found the right wrench, tightened it up and confidently asked Julie to start the engine. Nothing happened.
This time I really lost it, going on about pieces of poop and not catching a break. Julie was wondering about my sanity (even more than usual) and asked what was going on.
I explained that if tightening the wire hadn’t worked the problem was most likely that the starter itself was burned out, probably because of the loose connection and it would take 2-5 days and several hundred dollars at least to have it rebuilt or replaced.
After my “little” tirade I asked her to try to start it a couple more times. I heard the sound of an electrical arc that was away from the starter at the back of the engine. It turned out that the main engine ground cable was corroded where it attached to the engine block. After the 5 minutes it took to clean and reassemble everything the engine started flawlessly and we where on our merry way.
We chose to cross Tampa Bay and exit there instead of exiting thru the channel where we had run aground 4 days earlier. It was a little further but the Tampa Bay channel was deep enough for ocean going ships and there was no chance for us to run aground here.
We felt bad about the time and money it took to repair the mast after grounding but on the other hand felt pretty good as similar loads could be generated on the mast while sailing in high winds and pounding seas. If we were sailing with 40 knots of wind and 20 foot waves and the mast base collapsed, loosening the shrouds the way it did, the mast would have certainly fallen. Now imagine if this happened in the middle of a stormy night, 80 miles from land.
Our little mishap was probably a blessing in disguise.

Sunset from the boatyard.