Yard has lost my mast. Transport truck arrives in 44 hours

[sepharad]

I am going out of my mind. I have arranged truck transport from Denmark to Spain for this Thursday. my key to the mast house didn't work. "we don't have a mast house any more. People were sent a notice they had to mark and move their masts. If they didn't, we did".

I searched the racks with easily 100 masts, booms and furlex to no avail. it is a Kemp in mast reefing system with 2 winches about chest height...should be easy eh? No branding on the mast so aluminum like the 100 others.

Day 2 searching, I found my boom and furlex on the exterior wall of the office building, but not the mast.

Day 3 my displeasure and panic mounting I received the assistance of the yards mist experienced worker and after 2 hours, no luck.

I go back tomorrow and look again and hope to find it before 2pm Thursday.

If anyone has some wild idea on how to ferret it out please speak up. i am this side of hysterical.

[tkeithlu]

That's awful, but you will survive it in one piece. Be sure to prop your feet up and enjoy a cold beer this evening - worrying about what you will or won't find tomorrow won't change the outcome.

When i was a teenager, air freight lost our 56 foot mast, permanently, at O'Hare Airport (Chicago) when It changed planes going from Sausalito to Ft Lauderdale.

[Tetepare]

Keep looking. Have the yard staff accompany you.

Touch EVERY mast. Not just look at a row of them.

Mention to the yard staff (not management) that you’ll pay a reward.

Look at boats in the marina to see if your mast is on one of them.

[Buddy_Y]

I feel you brother--I was basically in the same position. When I purchased my boat from the widow of the PO, the boat was in a warehouse but the mast was still at his former marina. But it turned out the marina had lost track of it somewhere in their heap of 100+ 'abandoned' masts--all labeled with non-waterproof marker on plastic tags, left out in the rain.... It was a nightmare. I even paid to transport the mast they claimed was mine, only to discover they were guessing, and had guessed wrong. Here's what finally got me through it:

A) Internet Pics: I researched pics for that kind of mast (C&C 30 Mk I) online. This proved very hard, since all pics of the boat type were typically the whole boat, no close-ups of the mast. Even 'sail data' etc oddly didn't have the full mast length, just the value from deck to tip. So I went to the C&C owners facebook group with my plea, and several fine citizens snapped some close-ups of their same model mast's features. (And measured it for me.) This allowed me to find a candidate in the mast heap.

B) Check for hidden dates etc: The facebook guys tipped me that the C&C masts had dates stamped on their top plate. Sure enough, the candidate mast I'd found had a date stamped on it that was within a few days of my boat paperwork's stated manufacture date.

C) Measure Mast Step: To aid in ruling candidate masts out early in the process, I made a tracing of my boat's mast step. That allowed me to rule out false candidates quickly.

Hope this helps.

[Celestialsailor]

I really hope you find your mast. I saw this happen once in Alameda Ca., where at the olf Nelson yard the owner decided to clean out his mast racks. He was on the verve of being kicked off the property for non payment and non-compliance. He saw the writing on the wall. I think most of them were sold as scrap metal.

A long term refit guy was restoring his Pacific Seacraft 37 and the mast was one that was scraped. The yard owner promised him another mast but soon went out of business.

[Greatest Lakes]

Boat yards are dangerous places to leave anything. The safest place your boat can be is 50+ miles out. Buddy has a point about checking other boats.

[Hoodsail]

Excellent idea to check if its already been stepped on another boat...suggest writing your last name on the inside bottom in magic marker...helps immensely to identify mine each year, but yard is much smaller than yours.

[nortonscove]

This level of incompetence is truly mind boggling. Can you imagine how some of these places survive? Being a business owner for many years now it's shocking how you can strive to be among the best while this boondoggle type behavior can carry on.

[Kd9truck]

I would task the yard with providing a list of all jobs done on masts since the date that the yard stepped your mast. I would request also a record of the transient overnight transactions.
How long is your mast? At 62 ft I can’t think of many ways of transporting a mast inconspicuously. 1 would be on another boat, what kind of vessel is yours? Is it a popular or production favorite? Are there others close by?
No many reasons to take a mast, mistakes yes but that should be traceable with work orders.
Good luck

[Celestialsailor]

It's probably a 35ft. mast for his boat. If the yard could not find the mast, I would imagine they are responsible to provide a new one.

[JPA Cate]

Not really, they told him to come and label his stuff. He didn't. I bet their liability is non-existent.

Nonetheless, I sure hope they are able to locate it soon. Time's running out for the owner. What an awful
position to be in.

Ann

[Buddy_Y]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

If the yard could not find the mast, I would imagine they are responsible to provide a new one.

Ethically, if they lost it, they should replace it. But I think JPA below is right. Marinas' fine print is like that of every other business these days: clause such-and-such will say that if they accidentally burn your boat as a sacrifice to the Great Horned Owl God, they're not liable.

Seriously though, in the case of my lost mast, I had a similar 'you were warned' issue. Specifically, the PO was told to properly label or move his mast. He did not do so (being deceased), so when I came for the mast after buying the boat from his widow, the marina's attitude was: too bad, so sad, not our problem. In fact, I approached them in the fall mere days before they were closing until next spring (six months here in Ontario), and they wanted me to wait until then to search for it. I had to beg with my biggest brightest grin for them to allow me into the enclosure look for it. I think if I'd muttered even a hint of "I'll sue," that padlock would have remained on the gate.

[Celestialsailor]

I would imagine a "Slick Willie" lawyer could get a mast for him..."Call Saul"

[sepharad]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

Not really, they told him to come and label his stuff. He didn't. I bet their liability is non-existent.

Nonetheless, I sure hope they are able to locate it soon. Time's running out for the owner. What an awful
position to be in.

Ann

Ann, it was TAGGED and labeled and numbered. That didn'rt stop it from being carried off on a truck by the wrong person.

[sepharad]

THE ENDING? I went through all the stages of grief and was doing final preparations before the truck arrived, and 3 hours before arrival...they found it...in another part of the country. They hitched ip a long carrier and raced there and back and arrived 30 minutes before the truck.

I never want to do this again.