Month: January 2019

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Our Boat Has Been Demasted!

If you’re just tuning in, CLICK HERE to start at the beginning. 🙂

Don’t worry. We demasted it on purpose. Several months ago, we scheduled “No Tan Lines” to go to the boatyard, and have the mast removed so we could have the mast step and stringer replaced. After our last sailing trip, we noticed the mast step was cracked and decaying. The mast step supports the mast. If that fails, your mast can fall and that can be catastrophic, structurally and financially.

Our first appointment was postponed because a hurricane was barreling our way. The second appointment was also postponed because our motor conked out that morning.

Our third appointment was yesterday. The night before, the wind kicked up to more than 20 knots. We knew it was going to be a hairy trip but we did NOT want to postpone again. So, we got up at 5:00 a.m., did the final prep work, donned our all weather gear (it was in the upper 40’s), welcomed 3 of our awesome Dock 4 friends on board (who had volunteered to help), and shoved off.

Capt. Brian Whiddon (who is also the Managing Editor at WritersWeekly and the Operations Manager at BookLocker) immediately noticed a problem with the left bow thruster. It was shorting out. Despite that, and despite the strong northeast wind, he got us out of the slip with no problems at all. Once we got into Tamp Bay, we braced ourselves. There were breaking waves in the bay so it was quite an exciting ride! It only took about half an hour to get to Salt Creek, which is protected from the rough water. However, it was still windy and getting the boat through a narrow channel in gale was another adventure.

Brian got us into the narrow slip at the boat yard with no problems once again, even though we had to veer left to get in there.

The yacht riggers immediately got to work removing all of the rigging that supports the mast.

The crane arrived so they hooked it up to the mast, and got to work jiggling it back and forth until it literally “popped” out of its support.

In THIS VIDEO, you can see the mast popping from the interior of the boat.

In THIS VIDEO, you can see what the riggers did on the outside to break it from from its support. Not very technical but extremely effective, and even a bit humorous!

They then pulled it through the deck, got it on land, and laid it on a large, big-wheeled cart. And, we were then cleared to leave.

Brian backed us out of the slip, and steered far left (still going backwards) to avoid running aground on the other side of the creek. He was then able to use the right bow thruster to get us centered in the creek (think a creative, backwards three-point turn) and off we went, back to the marina.

The wind was blowing even harder now and, without the added weight of the mast, the boat was pitching to and fro quite violently in the breakers. It was a blast!!!! I only had to get up a few times to investigate crashing sounds down inside the boat.

Mason’s closet flew open and his Nerf guns fell out. Max’s Xbox flew off his shelf (oops – I forgot to secure that). The kitchen lamp flew to the floor (my fault on that one, too). The good news is I DID remember to lay down the TV in the salon.

We got back to the basin outside our marina, and prepared for the possibility of a piling collision because we had to turn left into our slip. Two other awesome neighbors I’d texted about our impending arrival, Rhonda and Kelly, were standing by on the dock with boat hooks. Brian steered us into the slip, picture perfect once again. No collisions at all! Everyone on board had been assigned lines to secure and, within just a few minutes, we were safely docked once again. The wind continued to blow all afternoon and, without the weight of the mast, Tanny has been pitching wildly all afternoon and evening.

Next week, the riggers will be here to cut apart the floor outside the boys’ bedrooms to begin the work. It should take about two to four weeks and it’ll be a mess but the mast will be once again safe for sailing after that. Just in time for Spring! 🙂

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NEXT: The Floating Flu Folly

Are you subscribed to our newsletter? We’ll alert you to new posts and we’ll be having book give-aways! 🙂

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Angela Hoy is a publisher, a blogger, and the author of 19 books. She lived on dirt her entire life before her family gave away almost everything they owned, and moved onto a 52-foot Irwin Center Cockpit Ketch. They all live, work, and play on board full-time.

Angela is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, a free source of paying markets for freelance writers and photographers. If you want to write for magazines, websites, businesses, or others, check it out. It’s free! Her publishing services company, BookLocker.com, has published more than 9,000 books over the past 18 years. If you want to publish a book, she’d love to hear from you! Abuzz Press is BookLocker’s hybrid publishing company. And, PubPreppers.com offers services to authors who are having their books published elsewhere.

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Annoying Dock Neighbors!

If you’re just tuning in, CLICK HERE to start at the beginning. 🙂

Moving onto a dock in a marina with other live aboards a year and a half ago truly showed us how mariners stick together. As I’ve written before, this is the friendliest, most tight-knit “neighborhood” we have ever lived in. If you need anything, and I mean ANYTHING, from a tomato (if you forgot to get one at the store), to someone to run to your boat and close your hatches (if it starts raining when you’re not onboard), to an obscure tool that you never knew you’d need for your boat, everyone will race to help you.

But, as with any neighborhood, there can be some problem people – folks who act too big for their britches, folks who over-imbibe on a regular basis, busy-bodies who poke their noses into everyone’s business…and folks to who take those “ask for help for anything” requests too far.

One example was an individual on the dock who had too much to drink one night, and walked down the dock, knocking on people’s boats at midnight, asking for a cigarette. We don’t smoke so I’m not sure why our boat got knocked on at midnight. I was still awake (I’m a night owl) and Coco went nuts, just like she did when we lived on dirt and someone rang the doorbell. By the time I got up on deck, this individual was stumbling back down the finger dock. We learned from neighbors the next day why he was wandering the dock at that hour.

There are other neighbors who cause problems but I won’t mention them here because they might recognized themselves and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. There is a woman on another dock who has a pit bull that attacked one of our Dock 4 dogs. I don’t mind upsetting her. I have nothing against the breed as I have met many loving, friendly pit bulls but that dog shouldn’t be out in public, even on a leash.

And, there are the people who get themselves into situations where they MUST ask for help. You know, like when I fell off the boat and had to go to the emergency room. (I was sober, by the way.) After that happened, people checked up on me constantly, brought us meals, and even gave valuable medical advice (our dock nurse). I’m not the first one to fall off a boat here and I certainly won’t be the last. One individual, who has since moved, fell off his boat while drunk, swam to another person’s boat, and knocked on the hull to get help crawling out of the water. The danger with falling off a boat is the possibility of hitting your head on the boat or dock on the way down. More people die on boats in marinas than they do at sea.

Here’s something that’s really cool (and somewhat related). I received an email yesterday from a man who lives nearby. He heard about my accident from a WritersWeekly subscriber and he wrote to say he writes boating books, and wanted to know how I was doing after my accident. He used to live in this marina, and now lives in a nearby RV park. I was very happy to make his acquaintance and, hopefully, we’ll be able to work together someday on one of his future books.

I have another Pancake update. I measured it and it’s down to 2 1/2 inches by 2 3/4 inches! At this rate, it might be gone by…October maybe?

NEXT: Our Boat Has Been Demasted!

Are you subscribed to our newsletter? We’ll alert you to new posts and we’ll be having book give-aways! 🙂

* * *

Angela Hoy is a publisher, a blogger, and the author of 19 books. She lived on dirt her entire life before her family gave away almost everything they owned, and moved onto a 52-foot Irwin Center Cockpit Ketch. They all live, work, and play on board full-time.

Angela is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, a free source of paying markets for freelance writers and photographers. If you want to write for magazines, websites, businesses, or others, check it out. It’s free! Her publishing services company, BookLocker.com, has published more than 9,000 books over the past 18 years. If you want to publish a book, she’d love to hear from you! Abuzz Press is BookLocker’s hybrid publishing company. And, PubPreppers.com offers services to authors who are having their books published elsewhere.