Active Marine Services Rises from the Ashes of Total Yacht Works
02 February 2014 | Mazatlan
John
I'll probably break this story into a few blog posts but we have had a really unusual boat yard experience here in Mazatlan.
The photo at the top of this blog entry shows the team of workers who are former Total Yacht Works employees. Without the dust having settled on the problems we faced these folks forged ahead and took good care of us. From left to right the guys are Victor (painting Manager, David (mechanic) Ernesto (painter), Roberto (parts) Scott (gringo) and Margarito.
The photo was taken under the bow of Active Transport with the travel lift in place to pick the boat up and drop it back in the water.
Since the events described in this blog post this team has established a new business to take over where total yacht works left off. They have rented the shop from Fonatur, the yard owner, and have named the business Active Marine Services.
Despite all the issues we have had with our haul out and repairs I would not hesitate to use this team again. They did not cause the problems but they sure fixed them.
The team stepped up to the plate for us and got our work finished without any shortcuts. I'm very confident in their capabilities and do not hesitate to recommend Active Marine Services to cruisers who come after us.
I also want to make it clear that we have no interest in this business despite the name they selected. We just want to share our positive experience with these men.
Our boat yard experience started out pretty well. The owner of the yacht service company we selected is a Yanmar certified mechanic and his observations and suggestions for renovating our engine all made a lot of sense. We agreed to have our work done by Total Yacht Works that was owned and operated by Bob Buchanan, a Canadian ex-pat who had been in business here for 12 years. We found the company name and contact information on the internet.
We agreed to have the engine pulled from the boat (good decision) and have the shop disassemble and inspect the typical problem areas where issues could be expected given the age and hours of use our engine has had.
I have listed the maintenance issue we faced in previous blog posts so I wont restate them here.
The engine has over 5,000 hours on it and most of those were put on during the past 5 years of our circumnavigation. Many of those hours were put on the engine charging batteries, either at sea or at anchor, and diesel engines do not like to be run without a load.
The total bill was going to be well above what we had budgeted but it was all for legitimate issues that needed to be addressed, especially if we expected to do the long, windless, trip from Alaska to the straits of Juan de Fuca next summer.
We were not that enthusiastic about spending a couple of weeks in a boat yard but at least the Fonatur yard here in Mazatlan is the cleanest boat yard we have ever been in and we had the use of the Fonatur marina shore side facilities that were always spotlessly maintained.
Fonatur is a venture of the Mexican government that has developed marinas in many places on the west coast and most have boat yards and travel lifts associated with them.
Things were going along pretty well. The engine had been pulled out of the boat and was in the shop in pieces. The problem areas in need of repair had been identified and the parts ordered. We were told that one critical part (new oil cooler) had to come from the east coast of the US and could delay the arrival of our parts for up to two weeks. There was not much we could do but wait.
The yard workers sanded and and painted the bottom. They put up canvass barriers around the boat to contain the sanding mess and cleaned up carefully after they were finished. The yard here is very clean.
The Fonatur management must be pretty strict about cleanliness because all of the yacht service businesses that work in this yard adhere to the same standards. That is not usually how boat yards are maintained.
The workers also cleaned and polished the hull above the waterline. That made an incredible improvement in the appearance of the boat.
Twelve days into our stay in the yard (we were in waiting-for-parts mode) we walked past the front of the Total Yacht Works office, on our way to dinner, and noticed Bob (the owner) loading things into his truck from the office. It seemed a little strange. It was after dark and he did not say anything to us. Turns out what was going on was very strange.
It was a Saturday evening so we were not expecting to interact with Bob until Monday. That was when we learned that the Bob, who has been in business here in Mazatlan for 12 years and has an excellent reputation in the cruising community, had suddenly left Mexico in his boat and was headed to destinations unknown.
Everything we heard about the reasons, for Bob's sudden departure, is second hand information. We have no direct knowledge of any of the events that led up to Bob's leaving. We were told that it was over a conflict with a previous business partner. But we really don't have first hand knowledge of the situation and the reasons behind his departure did not impact what we had to deal with.
Our interactions with Bob had left us confident in his honesty and competency. Im still convinced that his diagnosis of our engine problems were accurate and still have confidence bob's knowledge and experience. Im sure the facts behind his sudden departure will eventually come to light but for now its a mystery. It is unfortunate that we are the last yachties to enjoy the benefits of Bob's considerable expertise here in Mazatlan but I still think that the team that remains is still a good bet for those needing boat maintenance in Mazatlan.
Our predicament was that we were left high and dry with our engine in the shop of a business that we did not even know would remain unlocked for very long. The employees of the business seemed to be as much in the dark as we were. They showed up for work without anyone to supervise.
This is where we, once again, experienced the incredible descency of Mexican people..
By the end of the day all of the yard workers knew what had happened and that their jobs had essentially evaporated over night. But they stuck around for the balance of the week to get our work finished and get us back in the water. The guys in the shop team, especially the mechanic named David (who will be the subject of another blog post) worked diligently and carefully to make sure everything was finished properly before the boat was launched. They had obviously been well trained by Bob and knew what they were about.
I had to shell out some cash to pay for the crane to lift the engine into the boat and to see that the yard workers were paid at the end of the week. I also had to pay for the new stuffing box for the propeller shaft that had not arrived with the parts shipment from the states. I'll deduct all those cash expenditures from the bill I owe when I can figure out who to pay. The guy we trusted to take care of things bolted and seems unlikely to come back to Mexico any time soon.
We are back in the water and in a slip at Marina Mazatlan. Now we need to buckle down to the task of cleaning an incredibly dirty boat and re-stowing all the crap we had to get out to allow access to the engine, prop shaft and shaft seal.
Ill do another blog post outlining the joys of living on the hard without even being able to use the sinks on the boat. Just washing your hands, or brushing your teeth, involved a 10 minute walk to the marina facilities. There are many other inconveniences associated with living on a boat in the yard and I'm ready to describe them in detail, in another blog post, so cruisers who follow us will know what to expect.
On the plus side, the critical parts we needed to complete the engine repairs arrived from the states and Davide, the mechanic, was able to reassemble everything, get the engine cleaned up and painted and back in the boat. We had a few hitches getting the engine started but eventually ended up with a smooth running engine that propelled us back to the marina.
There are still a few issues with the engine electrical system that I rebuilt but the mechanical parts seem to be working fine.
Stay tuned for the next episode in Active Transport's tale of a painful major maintenance project that could have been a much worse mess if it had not been for the men in the photo at the top of this blog post.