ABEA2807-5E27-4401-87CC-4CBB815CA08A

Comment by Rob Daigle on June 6, 2018 at 5:11pm

I own a 2005 38’ (Andy Smith) Tiki which seems to have a lot of rot issues for such s young boat, this latest issue is the rear mast rotting from inside out.  I’ve replaced hatches, half the sheeting on starboard hull, a few patches on port hull, parts of the cockpit, replaced two beams and heavily patched the others. At first I was thinking neglect from prior owners but as we were breaking into the beams and especially the mast, the wood quality seemed poor. The beams were a patchwork of different woods and while the Thai workers from the boat yard were cutting into my mast they were laughing and (as far as I could tell) saying “this is the wood we grow mushrooms on”. There turned out to be mushrooms growing 3/4 the way up the inside of the mast. 

Just wondering if this is a thing with Andy Smith boats or I’m just getting lucky.

Beyond that I’ve scrapped the mast and looking for suggestions on running a wire up the middle again for the mast light or go with some other way of lighting myself. I believe while I think the wood was shit, I think running the wire in the top added to the problem...and the fact that there was no drain hole at the base of the mast. At least I hope this is the case because I want to believe in my formast which I’m sure is made of the same wood.

Formast already shot through the deck and pierced the port bow (previous owner)

Comment