alternative shaft anode

[jana]

after a long days motoring, my shaft anode loosened and eventually fell off in the middle of the north sea. Rather than have the boat lifted or dry out can anybody suggest an alternative way to protect my metal until the end of the season?

 

[pvb]

Hang one over the side...

Connect an anode to a wire, hang it over the stern of your boat, connect other end of wire to engine/propshaft. You can buy fish-shaped anodes designed especially for this, but they're quite expensive, so I'd just get a cheap ordinary anode and use that.

 

[JEG]

Silly question? How did you know that it had fallen off?

 

[RickUSA]

Probably worth having a diver go under and put another one on. Cheaper than buying a fish anode and heaps of wire, and really the right way to protect the boat.

 

[jana]

Moored up to a buoy on the orwell and got the snorkel out! By coincidence, I had purchased a new anode for £4 in Dunkirk (as opposed to the £16 paid at my local chandler earlier in the year) but the shaft was too deep and the nuts/bolts on the anode too fiddly for me to have any success with this method.

 

[charles_reed]

Fortunate you're in a nice tidal area, unlike the Med.

What I do is to beach the boat and refit between tides.

Might be more difficult with yours - depends of the keel configuration.

You could also give her a good mid-season scrub - kill two birds with one stone

 

[vyv_cox]

Anode securing

You'll never lose another if you mount it like this. Tighten the allen bolts (or whatever) to equal amounts, so the gaps on each side look the same width. Take two hammers. Whack the hammers together to hit both sides of the anode simultaneously. Retighten the bolts. Repeat until they don't go any tighter.

Difficult under water, but done ashore this will make anodes totally secure. This does assume that you have the MGDuff type with steel supports for the zinc. If the bolts contact the zinc directly there is no way that the anode will last.