Another Saildrive prop story

[Silverado]

Cruising in the Med last week we were having a fine time enjoying the beautiful hot weather on the shores of Eastern Sicily when the dreaded accident. We were in the process of weighing anchor at Taurmina bay when suddenly we had no drive from the engine.

After about an hour checking the engine and gearbox we concluded that we may not have a propellor. I dived over the side and it was true, the propellor was gone. We couldn't fathom what had happened but we had no prop. A trip ashore and a diver was called because we were in 15m of water and couldn't see anything on the bottom. Next day he arrived and within half an hour he had the prop, the conical nut and the locking screw. A few minutes later it was back on the boat and we were away €300 lighter but very relieved to have our prop.

On trying to establish how it happened we came to the conclusion that the problem arose when we got a wrap around our prop a few weeks earlier when a marina attendant pulled a lazy line tight at the wrong moment. This had obviously loosened the locking nut and eventually the prop fell off. The modern saildrive doesn't use a splitpin so this can happed.

Have any other forumites had this experience, any sensible suggestions?

 

[savageseadog]

I don't know which saildrive you have but the Yanmar one has splines on which the prop itself goes. I am assuming you mean the fixed 2 blade propeller henceforth. The Cone is a left hand thread which is the first stage security and there is a right hand thread locking screw which goes down the middle of everthing. It should be impossible for it to unscrew because the LH and RH threads lock against each other. It's possble that you've broken off the the piece of shaft which the cone screws onto in which case you've got a really expensive repair. It might be worth considering the gentlest grade of Loctite for the screw.

 

[Bav34]

If it's a Volvo I may have the answer thanks to this Forum!!

see here

Steve Cronin got it in one /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

 

[Silverado]

It is a Volvo saildrive.

 

[Bav34]

In that case you MUST replace the stainless steel bolt a.s.a.p.

Steve Cronin is right. When you buy the new one you will see a blob of 'loctite' in the thread. When I took my prop off at the beginning of this year to replace the anode I re-used the old bolt .... no obvious reason not to ..... until you see a new one!!

 

[Sailfree]

Having had lots of problems and given up with Volvo on our charter boats I can tell you where you went wrong- you used it!

After all it should not be beyond Volvo's comprehension to anticipate an engine run in reverse or getting a line round it!!