Port Washington (Part 1) NY USA

On Monday 8 October we had some excellent news.  David at Capri Marine had got our message and was happy to lift out BV that morning and sort out whatever problems there were with the propeller shaft.  We got BV ready and waited for the tide to rise enough for us to get into the travelhoist dock.

Lifted out and being cleaned

At 1030hrs we called David as requested and he asked us to come straight in.  One of the other boats to be lifted that morning had not turned up, so we had jumped up the list.  Being happy to use a maximum of only 1300rpm (more than this we could hear and feel vibration from the drivetrain), getting BV going in reverse took a bit of sea space and we were moving nicely towards the dock when we were told to head out again; David hadn’t got his reception team in position yet.  Ten minutes later the slings had been lowered for us and there were 4 guys on the dock ready to take our lines.  That was reassuring given that there was a reasonable crosswind and the dock was at the wrong height for fenders – our stanchions were looking very vulnerable!  But despite the concerns all went well and before long BV was out and being jetwashed.

No apparent problem with the propeller other than a missing anode at the back

There was some minor scuffing on the bottom of the keel that would need tidying up but the propeller looked fine. As expected though, we found that the propeller shaft was indeed bent.  It was just a tiny amount, probably only a millimetre or 2, but enough to put a slight wobble on the propeller and create the vibrations we had felt at higher revs. [Ed: in fact the bend was so slight that I could only see it when the prop was rotated whilst the Spurs rope cutter was still in place: one of the cutter’s components, which should remain in line as the prop rotates, moved in and out against another of the components. With the rope cutter removed, I could not see the tiny movement of the propshaft resulting from the bend in it.]

Our cockpit view for the next week or so

Gecko on the right

At least we now knew the scale of the problem and were in a boatyard that had the expertise to fix it.

The team had other yachts to work on ahead of ours but on Tuesday the glassfibre work on the keel started and late on Wednesday they started to look at getting our driveshaft out.  Meanwhile I’d spoken to Rustler Yachts about how to get the propeller shaft out; some careful measuring had showed that it was likely to be a tricky job.

Normally, having removed the propeller, you disconnect the propeller shaft where it comes in at the stern gland and then draw it out backwards.  Even though our propeller shaft is in several pieces, the aft bit is so long that when the time came to slide it backwards I could see that it was going to hit the skeg. Hence the call to the boat builders for some guidance!

Rustler Yachts advised that if you lift the engine (time consuming and therefore very expensive!), the shaft will come out forwards.  Alternatively, if you slide the shaft forward a bit and then remove the cutlass bearing at the aft end of the stern tube, there is normally enough clearance to slide the shaft backwards and spring it around the skeg.

We decided to try the ‘quick and easy(!?)’ method first, springing the shaft around the skeg.  But to do this, we needed to slide the aft part of the shaft forwards so that we could get to the cutlass bearing and to do that we had to remove the forward section of the propeller shaft and the attached Aquadrive unit.  So, with the rope cutter removed, on Thursday the yard mechanics got to work taking off the prop and then started work dismantling stuff inside the boat.

View beneath the sole boards in the aft cabin (the stern of BV is to the right of the picture).  The aft section of the propeller shaft (arrow) has been disconnected from the forward section and the forward section of the shaft has been completely removed.  The black rubber cone with the hose (just to the right of the arrow) is the stern gland, which provides a seal around the prop shaft and stops seawater flooding into the boat

The forward section of the propeller shaft with the green and black Aquadrive unit.  The Aquadrive unit is effectively a universal joint which minimises vibrations and engine/shaft alignment complications

With the forward part of the shaft removed, we looked to see if the aft part of the shaft would come out forward, past the gearbox and engine and into the saloon.

View beneath the sole boards in the main saloon, at the bottom of the companionway steps (the stern of BV is to the left of the picture).  The forward part of the prop shaft and the Aquadrive unit, normally sit attached to the aft end of the grey metal gearbox (slightly right of centre in the picture) with the shaft disappearing through the cut-out under the steps and into the area under the aft cabin’s sole

No such luck, Rustler Yachts were right, and the front end of the shaft hit the back end of the gearbox before the back end of the shaft was clear of the stern tube.  Time to find out if the ‘remove the cutlass bearing’ trick would work. If nothing else, the cutlass bearing needed to be changed as we had seen that there was some play in it, probably a result of running the engine with a bent drive shaft.  So the yard staff got to work on the nightmare job of removing it.

Here the cutlass bearing has been removed and the prop shaft slid up inside the glassfibre stern tube (stern tube indicated by the red arrow).  On the skeg you can see witness marks (indicated by the yellow arrow) where the propshaft hit the skeg when we tried to slide it out backwards

As is normal, the cutlass bearing had to be destroyed to get it out.  It is such a tight fit that it has to be cut and bent inwards to get it out and that took a couple of hours of careful work so as not to damage the back of the glassfibre stern tube.  Theoretically, with the bearing removed and the back of the tube now with a larger diameter, there would be enough clearance for the propshaft to be sprung out past the skeg.

We tried but a 1¼” stainless steel propeller shaft is not massively springy and when the end hit the skeg we felt that to spring/bend it much more would put too much pressure on the back edge of the glassfibre stern tube (red arrow above).

Looking forward from the doorway of the aft cabin and thinking
about trying to slide the propeller shaft out forwards.
Would we need to lift the engine?

It was balance of risks.  If we cracked the glassfibre stern tube we would have a major job on our hands.  It would be very time consuming to cut out the old one and replace it and the yard bills would rapidly mount up.  So, we decided to look again at sliding the propeller shaft out forwards, even if that meant the expense of lifting the engine.

The problem with lifting the engine is that you have to disturb or disconnect lots of wires, pipes and fuel lines and you have to build a frame over the engine, inside the saloon, to then be able to lift it.

Having already tried sliding the shaft out forwards, and confirmed that it fouled on the gearbox, the marine engineer downed tools for a bit and went off to get some lunch and to have a think about the best way to lift the engine.

Meanwhile, I also had a bit of a think and started some careful measuring.  My theory was that we might be able to get away with leaving the engine in situbut remove the transmission gearbox to get the clearance we needed.

Gearbox out.  Is there enough space now for removing the prop shaft?

Hooray!  Prop shaft finally out

My measurements looked hopeful and when the engineer came back from lunch we bounced the idea around a bit, along with doing a few check measurements.  It looked tight but ‘doable’ and was much simpler than lifting the whole engine so we gave it a go.  Obviously, these things are never simple and we had to take up a floorboard to remove some bracing points, and then had to work out how to hold the now wobbly fuel filter assembly in place, but at least we didn’t have to drain the hydraulic fluid from the gearbox.  Eventually, we removed the last of the bolts holding the gearbox to the engine, lifted the gearbox backwards and to one side and held our collective breath…….. the shaft slide out easily.  Hooray!

So, the propshaft has now been sent off to a machine shop where they will spin it, find out where the bend is and, hopefully, rework it so that it is straight.  If that fails, they’ll have to make a new one but everyone seems confident that they should be able to straighten our original one.  We have no idea how long that will take, hopefully, not too long.  But we’ll certainly be here until early next week.  Time for some more sightseeing in the Big Apple.

Port Washington, New York, USA