Is a saildrive an abomination?

[Skylark]

I bought a new boat this summer and it has a saildrive. Other than casual reading of the occasional post on here I had no experience of them. I was aware that the hull seal should be changed every 5 years or so but didn’t realise its significance. I guess I thought it no different, in terms of complexity, to the Volvo shaft seal which I’d had for the previous 7 years.

The boat was brand new so no short term action is required but I’ve started to research just what the job entails. To my absolute horror, it seems that the saildrive has to be removed from the boat which pretty much implies removal / moving the engine. What a friggin nightmare.

None of us would dream of buying a car or a truck that needed to have its engine and gearbox removed for routine maintenance, so why do we have to accept this pi55 poor engineering on boat?

Are they really such an abomination?

 

[tidclacy]

Are they really such an abomination?[/QUOTE]

YES

Cheaper for the boat builders!

 

[prv]

I have one. They're not an abomination.

I would be dubious if I was setting off to bongo-bongo land in a self-sufficient blue-water cruiser, but for most of us they're no liability at all. The official life is seven years, not five, and loads of people leave it for far longer than that without trouble. I have never heard of a sinking due to a saildrive diaphragm failing.

Pete

 

[West Coast]

I have one. They're not an abomination.

I would be dubious if I was setting off to bongo-bongo land in a self-sufficient blue-water cruiser, but for most of us they're no liability at all. The official life is seven years, not five, and loads of people leave it for far longer than that without trouble. I have never heard of a sinking due to a saildrive diaphragm failing.

Pete

+ 1 Have had both saildrive and conventional drive arrangements on boats over the years. Both have positives and negatives, saildrives have (overall) proven to be reliable and long lasting. For me a saildrive is the best for my needs and wants. Ultimately, this subject seems to come down to personal choice..............

 

[Tranona]

I bought a new boat this summer and it has a saildrive. Other than casual reading of the occasional post on here I had no experience of them. I was aware that the hull seal should be changed every 5 years or so but didn’t realise its significance. I guess I thought it no different, in terms of complexity, to the Volvo shaft seal which I’d had for the previous 7 years.

The boat was brand new so no short term action is required but I’ve started to research just what the job entails. To my absolute horror, it seems that the saildrive has to be removed from the boat which pretty much implies removal / moving the engine. What a friggin nightmare.

None of us would dream of buying a car or a truck that needed to have its engine and gearbox removed for routine maintenance, so why do we have to accept this pi55 poor engineering on boat?

Are they really such an abomination?

As already suggested the change period (for a Volvo) is 7 years. In most cases it is nowhere near as difficult to do as you imagine. Typical labour time is 8-10 hours and materials around £300 so overall cost less than £1000 to have it done professionally.

There are literally 10's of 000s of saildrives in use over the last 30+ years and the majority of new boats are fitted with them. The advantages in a modern boat, particularly the "packaging" are obvious and many modern hull forms make it difficult to use a shaft drive without severely compromising the interior layout.

 

[Stork_III]

As already suggested the change period (for a Volvo) is 7 years. In most cases it is nowhere near as difficult to do as you imagine. Typical labour time is 8-10 hours and materials around £300 so overall cost less than £1000 to have it done professionally.

There are literally 10's of 000s of saildrives in use over the last 30+ years and the majority of new boats are fitted with them. The advantages in a modern boat, particularly the "packaging" are obvious and many modern hull forms make it difficult to use a shaft drive without severely compromising the interior layout.

And no reported failures in that time, many haven't been changed in 15-20 years. When changed there is usually little difference to be seen between the old and new.

 

[Skylark]

As already suggested the change period (for a Volvo) is 7 years. In most cases it is nowhere near as difficult to do as you imagine. Typical labour time is 8-10 hours and materials around £300 so overall cost less than £1000 to have it done professionally.

There are literally 10's of 000s of saildrives in use over the last 30+ years and the majority of new boats are fitted with them. The advantages in a modern boat, particularly the "packaging" are obvious and many modern hull forms make it difficult to use a shaft drive without severely compromising the interior layout.

I appreciate the reassurance..................but not yet convinced. Mine isn't Volvo it's the one with the bad reputation regarding their cone clutch. I believe they recommend 5 years interval. Just thinking about the work, and the potential for cock-up, leaves me cold. I can only think that the saildrive manufacturer must have got the boat builder well and truly pi55ed before they agreed to using them. Customer satisfaction and cost of ownership presumably never came into the equation.

 

[maby]

Our current boat was the first that we have owned with a saildrive. I was nervous about them initially but have to admit that they are convenient in many ways - internal layout as has been suggested as well as boat handling - they put the prop lower and further forward and seem to be a lot less subject to propwalk.

A couple of years ago, friends got a heavy rope caught on the prop of their shaft drive boat under a significant amount of throttle - the force snapped the P bracket out of the hull and they needed emergency support or they would have lost the boat - far less likely to encounter equivalent problems on a saildrive.

 

[Tranona]

I appreciate the reassurance..................but not yet convinced. Mine isn't Volvo it's the one with the bad reputation regarding their cone clutch. I believe they recommend 5 years interval. Just thinking about the work, and the potential for cock-up, leaves me cold. I can only think that the saildrive manufacturer must have got the boat builder well and truly pi55ed before they agreed to using them. Customer satisfaction and cost of ownership presumably never came into the equation.

Difficult to see how you can come to that conclusion. If there really was a high level of customer dissatisfaction, think it would have been noticed inb the last 30 years.

In reality the pressure is from the builders on the engine manufacturers rather than the other way round. Jeanneau for example are progressively changing to saildrives after years of using shaft drives. The benefits are obvious for both builders and users, allowing more compact, more refined installations at no cost penalty. Difficult to install higher powered engines with appropriate size props in today's modern shallow hulls without having the engine well forward and the shaft hanging on a vulnerable P bracket. Latest design also offer the possibility of a steerable drive to improve low speed handling under power.

Changing the seal should you decide to do it, is not the horror story you think it is, provided the builder has left room in the installation to do it. On my Bavaria it was done comfortably in a day by two experienced fitters - arrived at 9.30 and running by 4pm the same day.

 

[Halo]

Yanmar's very high prices for spares make changing the seals a very expensive process. If you price up the parts (A and B diaphragms, clips, rubber fairing etc) you will have a shock. I reckon it cost me over £500 and I did it myself. If you pay £1000 for a professional job then for the 5 year life recommended by Yanmar is costing you £200 per year or £4/week, every week, just to maintain sail drive rubber.
I suspect some bod at Yanmar decided to boost profits by changing the recommendation from inpsect to change every 5 years.
I do like how my sail drive performs but Yanmar have gone right down in my estimation with this cover my a**e / profiteering trick .
Unless people refuse to buy boats with sail drives they will get more and more common as they allow boats to have more space below and hance attract SWMBOs

 

[maby]

Yanmar's very high prices for spares make changing the seals a very expensive process. If you price up the parts (A and B diaphragms, clips, rubber fairing etc) you will have a shock. I reckon it cost me over £500 and I did it myself. If you pay £1000 for a professional job then for the 5 year life recommended by Yanmar is costing you £200 per year or £4/week, every week, just to maintain sail drive rubber.
I suspect some bod at Yanmar decided to boost profits by changing the recommendation from inpsect to change every 5 years.
I do like how my sail drive performs but Yanmar have gone right down in my estimation with this cover my a**e / profiteering trick .
Unless people refuse to buy boats with sail drives they will get more and more common as they allow boats to have more space below and hance attract SWMBOs

If you want a decent size, modern boat, you really don't have the option to refuse to buy boats with sail drives - the range of choice is extremely limited.

 

[jwilson]

+ 1 Have had both saildrive and conventional drive arrangements on boats over the years. Both have positives and negatives, saildrives have (overall) proven to be reliable and long lasting. For me a saildrive is the best for my needs and wants. Ultimately, this subject seems to come down to personal choice..............

Positives: cheaper to build, less space taken up in stern, no vulnerable P-brackets, no problems with propshaft alignment, and usually less vibration/noise when running.
Negatives: a bigger hole in the bottom of the boat, substantial expense every 7 years (though few are ever replaced that early).

Personally I prefer shaft drive and a Yanmar, which is one significant factor in choosing present Jeanneau. Could get more difficult if I want to change to a newer boat. It's all down to cost-cutting: in the mainstream production boat market we now have egg-box inner linings (cheap to build, a bitch to repair), no useful block holes in alloy toerails or even no alloy toerails at all, no rubber bumpers on the transom, squarer and squarer interior joinery (curves cost money), etc.

 

[jimi]

The previous owner of my boat had the gasket replaced at 18years. He was'nt aware it needed replacing before that and said it was almost as good as new.

 

[sailorman]

The previous owner of my boat had the gasket replaced at 18years. He was'nt aware it needed replacing before that and said it was almost as good as new.

Now then relate all this to the skin fitting checking / corrosion / lack of maintenance / sinking`s on the insurance threads of the past month. Sorry Sir its been 7 year & 3 months since that was changed

 

[Sailfree]

Personally I prefer shaft drive and a Yanmar, which is one significant factor in choosing present Jeanneau. Could get more difficult if I want to change to a newer boat.

Yet another reason why i will invest a considerable sum renovating my boat to be like new!! I used to dispair of the fixed views on long keels MAB addicts and find I will soon become one when my 43 jeanneau is considered a MAB by virtue of age!!

 

[jimi]

Its an age thing ;-)

 

[JumbleDuck]

What I simply cannot understand about saildrives - and I speak as one who has never had one, but has looked at the diagrams - is why they make changing that seal so infernally complicated. Surely on any sane design it would be "remove eight allen head bolts securing mounting flange to hull to hull, remove another eight securing other mounting flange to leg, remove rubber seal down leg and over prop, replace." Bish bosh, as that rather vulgar cook says, job done in an hour. The idea that it's OK, because two technicians can do it in a day just seems strange.

I have a Citroën DS. The main hydraulic accumulator is a service item. To get at it, you have to remove the headlamp steering mechanism, the front wings, the radiator air ducting, the radiator, the alternator and the battery. If you have a LHD car you have to take the steering column out too. I always wondered what the designers did next; I think the answer may be saildrives.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Yanmar's very high prices for spares make changing the seals a very expensive process.

Yanmar's high prices for spares make everything a very expensive process. That we pay roughly twice what people in the US do for OEM parts just adds to the insult. If and when I replace my engine I will absolutely not consider a Yanmar for that reason, and I shall write and tell them so, with a copy of the Nanni (or Beta or anyone but Yanmar) receipt stapled on to the letter.

 

[doug748]

They do give a nice quiet drive.

Look on the bright side, at least you don't have to replace the lot, that really is bonkers expensive.

 

[Halo]

Yanmar's high prices for spares make everything a very expensive process. That we pay roughly twice what people in the US do for OEM parts just adds to the insult. If and when I replace my engine I will absolutely not consider a Yanmar for that reason, and I shall write and tell them so, with a copy of the Nanni (or Beta or anyone but Yanmar) receipt stapled on to the letter.

Next time I go to the States I will bring a set back with me!!!