DPH drive help needed

[CHI]

Hi Jimmy.

Yes , same prices. This time port fwd 3 blade prop, last time Stbd rear 4 bladed prop. As they are 10 years old , but in good condition i am going to have both port props re- bushed.

I have used Steel Developments many times before over the years. Always a great service and very pleasant to deal with. ( just a customer no business interest)

Good Luck

Keith
CHI

 

[jfm]

Yep, you're right - I even took them to the boat when provisioning it for France, but ended up not loading them because of (lack of) storage space. Ah well. It's a bit of a pita to have to bring them down as hold luggage, but there you are. And yes, lift is at de Stefano on Tuesday; it's essentially just a lift and hold over lunchtime. Will you be around?

Yes I'll likely be around. I'm doing a lift and hold Monday, @bleumer yard, to have a prop removed and taken away for rebalance. They rebalanced it during my long April lift out but I still have a vibration (different vibration, but still a vibration). Flying back late Tuesday night. Gimme a shout if you need another pair of hands. Wx good

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Hi Jimmy.

Yes , same prices. This time port fwd 3 blade prop, last time Stbd rear 4 bladed prop. As they are 10 years old , but in good condition i am going to have both port props re- bushed.

I have used Steel Developments many times before over the years. Always a great service and very pleasant to deal with. ( just a customer no business interest)

Good Luck

Keith
CHI

Ah that's a very helpful endorsement, cheers. I will prob bite the bullet then, I always want to have a complete spare set of props ready to go, just in case.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Yes I'll likely be around. I'm doing a lift and hold Monday, @bleumer yard, to have a prop removed and taken away for rebalance. They rebalanced it during my long April lift out but I still have a vibration (different vibration, but still a vibration). Flying back late Tuesday night. Gimme a shout if you need another pair of hands. Wx good

Great stuff - see you next week.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

So, yesterday was the day. I came down Monday evening late, equipped with a new prop set, and had a lift booked at de Stefano for 1130 yesterday morning. At the appointed hour I trundled round to the yard, and was immediately lifted:

Interestingly as soon as the boat was lifted I noticed that someone had had a go at sh*gging my generator raw water inlet, and had seemingly left some evidence behind

And here's the problem

This bolt had worked itself out, and was rubbing on the hub of the forward prop. This had also pushed the props backwards so all the usual clearances had gone

With the props off, it was easy to get to the bolt

I'd never taken the props off before, but so far all my careful planning meant that it was all straightforward, I'd only been out of the water half an hour, I just needed to remove that plastic cover to make sure there was no damage underneath, and then I could put it all back together ready for relaunch after lunch.

Because the boat was only going to be out of the water for two hours, the yard had blocked it off quite close to the water's edge. (You can guess where this is going...). I removed the bolts, and got the black plastic ring off that's in front of the plastic cover. All I had to do was take the plastic cover off, which I did. What I didn't realise was that there are two metal spacers in the cover, and they aren't held in place with anything. It was quite a surprise then when one of these metal spacers fell out of the cover as I removed it, bounced a couple of times, and stopped right on the edge of the quay. And then fell into the sea.

By now it's about 1230 and everything in France is closed for lunch. Normal business resumes at 1345ish and the boat was due to be launched at 1400. Losing a bit of the assembly wasn't something that I'd planned for, so I decided that the best course of action was to refit everything, except that missing spacer and the associated bolt, so that the boat could at least be relaunched if necessary. Then I walked back round to my berth to get my scooter. By now people were back from lunch, so I explained my predicament to the yard. They were brilliantly helpful, and phoned Marine Moteurs in Cannes la Bocca for me.

It turns out you can't just buy the spacer (indeed, it doesn't even show on the marinepartseurope.com diagrams), you have to buy the whole assembly (part number 26 in the diagram in post #1). Luckily, Marine Moteurs had one in stock so I shot down there on the scooter (it's a few miles away) and collected it. €20 later and I had my replacement spacer:

It's a bit annoying though that you have to buy the plastic cover as well, because now I have a spare that I'll never need - these covers only seem to suffer if you get a rope round the prop, which in three years of Med boating has never happened to me. I guess I'll just keep that bit in my spares box for a few years until such time as I change boats. Huh.

Anyway, now that I've had a bit of practice, whizzing the props off and back on again only took a few mins, and I was all good to go.

I took the boat back round to the berth, in and out of gear all fine, no nasty noises, both drives working as expected. Perfect. I went back round to the yard to get my scooter back, and pay my bill, which was an amazingly reasonable €264 for lift, block off and relaunch. I'm a big fan of de Stefano, this is the third or fourth time I've used them.

So, now was the time to take the boat out and see if the new props perform any better. And then this happened:

Oh FFS. My neighbour was away yesterday, and I think what happened is that after I'd slipped the stern lines and was walking up to the bow to slip the bow line, the stern of the boat drifted *under* the lazy line and collected it on a stern cleat. Then, as I motored forward, as I went over the ground chain, it picked up the line and snagged me good and proper.

So now I am nicely chained by the ar$e to the middle of the fairway. Can't go forwards. Can't get back into the berth. So what I did was to put another line through the end of the chain - and then I undid the shackle between the chain and the ground line (in fact you can see I've already done this in the pic above). Then I could pull the boat back to the quay, and I then undid the lazy line. And then having got the whole lot on board, I decided to go out to sea, anchor somewhere, and try and untangle it.

Which is exactly what I did.

This took about half an hour, but no ropes were harmed in the process, which was great because when I got back to the berth later, I was able to use the spare line to retrieve the tail of the ground chain, reshackle the original line to the chain, and refix the lazy line. All done.

In fact the only damage done was to that plastic cover that I annoyingly had to buy in order to replace the lost spacer. Ho hum

Anyway, after this latest drama, I was finally able to test the new props out - and everything is working perfectly. Both engines making wot. Flat out 38kts (which is as quick as I get down here, with the hotter air temps). Brilliant. Full marks to aquatom who called this very accurately in #17.

So, in terms of post refit issues, this is a big step forward. I just need to figure out my autopilot and I am all set.

 

[MapisM]

Full marks to aquatom who called this very accurately in #17.

+1.
Based on your description of the boat behaviour, I wouldn't have even hoped (let alone counted!) in such positive outcome.
Now, where did I leave my last slice of humble pie? That'll be handy for breakfast...

 

[wakeup]

Flipping heck Jimmy, that really is a Murphy's law story.

Did you also notice that your hull has sprouted a keel in photo no 4.

 

[volvopaul]

Blimey jimmy it never rains in your world . Just pours!!! Well done your getting quite the hands on bloke these days.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Flipping heck Jimmy, that really is a Murphy's law story.

Did you also notice that your hull has sprouted a keel in photo no 4.

Blimey jimmy it never rains in your world . Just pours!!! Well done your getting quite the hands on bloke these days.

Yep, poor old Nick_h had to put up with me taking out the trials of the day on several bottles of rosé at dinner last night. Sorry Nick!

 

[jrudge]

Are you in Antibes tomorrow?

I arrive - strike permitting - and then have to head into Antibes to drop of JFMs life jackets that I borrowed.

 

[rafiki_]

jimmy, you sure have upset one of the boating Gods. Anyway I hope your consumption of wine has appeased him/her and ended your recent trials and tribulations! Great result with the new props, and happy boating from now on.

 

[alt]

Is the water in the marina an Antibes not really swimmable in?

 

[kashurst]

occasionally you get days when you wish you had just stayed in bed. Great news it was an easy(ish) fix. I had the opposite problem when I took my boat out for its first proper test run, dropped the bow lines in the sea went out for a few hours, came back pulled up the slime line and walked to the bows - no bow ropes, the knot had come undone. Fortunately a marinero problem and sorted in a few mins. Enjoy the summer

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Are you in Antibes tomorrow?

I arrive - strike permitting - and then have to head into Antibes to drop of JFMs life jackets that I borrowed.

No, heading back to the UK tonight, back down Saturday afternoon.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Is the water in the marina an Antibes not really swimmable in?

It's pretty unpleasant. I wouldn't *choose* to swim in it.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

occasionally you get days when you wish you had just stayed in bed. Great news it was an easy(ish) fix. I had the opposite problem when I took my boat out for its first proper test run, dropped the bow lines in the sea went out for a few hours, came back pulled up the slime line and walked to the bows - no bow ropes, the knot had come undone. Fortunately a marinero problem and sorted in a few mins. Enjoy the summer

It was just the relentlessness of the various issues yesterday that was a bit wearing. As an aside, I'm in total awe of your own battles with your D9 - great result, very well done.

 

[vas]

blimey !

I think it's worth a publication in the last page of ybw, no?
More suspense and drama than dropping a raw water filter in the drink, and ruining a go-pro, no?

enjoy

V.

 

[Portofino]

Well done J
Eventually you do land butter side up . Excellent result .

 

[benjenbav]

Fantastic news that all is sorted engine-wise. Was it at all obvious why bolt 27 had worked loose?

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

Fantastic news that all is sorted engine-wise. Was it at all obvious why bolt 27 had worked loose?

Best guess is that the bushed prop migrated forward enough to touch the bolt head and loosen it. It could also be the case that the bolt wasn't that tight in the first place; the bottom bolt wasn't very tight.