Ammonite
Well-known member
I've just hauled out after 7 months afloat and the zinc anode on my 120SD saildrive has virtually disappeared. The engine is an MD2040 and its isolated from the drive (I've confirmed there's no continuity). The prop is a Brunton's Autoprop with its own zinc anode and its fitted with an Ambassador ropecutter which by design bridges the usual Autoprop isolation. The zinc prop anode is only circa 20% depleted. There is no shore power on our pontoon and we have probably plugged into shore power (no galvanic isolator) for something like 30 days this year. There's an additional zinc pear anode attached to the gearbox (and nothing else) as a backup for the saildrive anode in direct sight of the saildrive about 2ft away. This has lost very little but I'm assuming the saildrive anode would need to dissappear completely before this does anything. There is another zinc pear fitted as standard (Moody 36) that is connected to the rudder, keel cooler, keel and dc negative and ac earth. What's the most likely cause of the excess depletion and what can I check to confirm this or is the make up of the Autoprop such that the Saildrive anode gets depleted first? Under normal circumstances the Autoprop prop anodes apparently don't last very long but mine does. I'm planning on changing the dedicated gearbox, saildrive and prop anodes to aluminium next season. Thanks
Edit - there is a good connection between the prop and prop anode
Edit - there is a good connection between the prop and prop anode
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