Sunday Mast — Marching to the Sea

Written by Neil Farrell

Neil has been a journalist covering the Estero Bay Area for over 27 years. He’s won numerous journalism awards in several different categories over his career.

January 31, 2025

Friends of Riley Taft hoisted a 59-foot mast on their shoulders and marched from Main Street down to The Embarcadero and the South T-pier, where he planned to install the mast on his 30-foot sailboat, the ‘Mai Treya.’ Photos show the progress of the trek. Photos by Neil Farrell

The rock ‘n’ roll band, Toto in their hit song “Africa,” sang “There’s nothing that a hundred men or more cannot do…”

That adage was on full display in Morro Bay recently, as a group of friends and acquaintances gathered in the early morning at Morro Door Company on Main Street to help out a friend with a little sweat equity and muscle power.

Riley Taft, a 2024 Cal Poly graduate in Mechanical Engineering, called on the help of over a dozen friends to help him carry a 59-foot ship’s mast from the Door Company, marching down Main Street to Atascadero Road and turning left for the Embarcadero. 

The portage crew — with both men and women — turned south on Embarcadero carrying the precious cargo hoisted up on their shoulders, past the Morro Dunes RV Park, and over the Morro Creek pedestrian bridge. 

There in the South Pit parking lot, sawhorses were set up and the mast laid down for a brief respite from their mile-long trek.

Then it was hoisted up again for the march down the dirt portion of Embarcadero to the Harborwalk and then down to the South T-pier.

There, Taft intended to use the City’s public hoist to raise and mount the mast to his 30-foot sailboat, the Mai Treya, a boat with a somewhat colorful origin story.

The Mai Treya is a story about love and perseverance. Taft explained that he bought the boat from Tom Stein, a local man who now lives in Hawaii, who laid the keel and started working on the all-Mahogany, cutter-rigged, sloop in his yard on the lower flanks of Black Hill.

Eventually, his landlord wanted it moved out of the yard, and it ended up at the Door Company, where it sat for about 30 years, according to Dan Lapp, the Door Company owner, now retired.

It was practically a landmark in town, sitting behind the Door Company’s fence, along with the hull of a Chinese junk ship that also used to be stored there. (That junk was purchased years ago and was destined to be repurposed into a piece of children’s playground equipment in a park.)

Taft said the builder worked on her for about 30 years and she’d never been in the water. Never, that is, until Taft bought the boat that he praised for the incredible workmanship and style. “It’s such a remarkable boat,” he said. The inside is all laminated in Mahogany, the same wood used for the hull. Everything about the boat is hand crafted.

The plan is to get her sailable by summer, Taft said, take a few short sea trial runs up and down the coast, then take her to Baja California. From there, and there is no real timeline at this point, he plans to sail her to Hawaii and take Stein for a sail on the boat that he built. From there, Taft said he wants to sail around the world.

The mast is made of Douglas Fir that’s been hollowed out in the center and covered in carbon fibers. It was estimated to weigh about 800 pounds as calculated by one of the porters.

The hollow center is to run wiring through for lights and navigation gear that will eventually be mounted on top of the mast, Taft explained. That borehole too was done by hand.

If all goes according to plan, Taft said he hopes to have the boat completely done sometime next fall.

For Lapp, who said he’s been enjoying retirement very much, it was a true treat to know that the boat that he saw daily, sitting in dry dock for so long, will finally realize her purpose — to ply the seas.

He also loves the idea of Taft sailing her to Hawaii so Stein can see and experience the boat he put so much hard work into building.

You May Also Like…

Water Project Money Held Up

Water Project Money Held Up

This map of the Los Osos CSD’s ‘Water Resiliency Intertie Pipeline Project,’ shows the proposed route for a water...