Haul-Out & Repairs

During our adventures south to Puerto Vallarta and back to Mazatlán, we noticed oil spilling out of the saildrive, along with excessive vibration.  The following picture shows an engine and a saildrive.  The saildrive is the transmission, hull penetration and shaft seal in a compact unit.

I changed the gear-oil a couple times, and both times the oil was contaminated with water (not good!), so I called a mechanic in Mazatlán who helped with repairs when we purchased the boat. Patrick Fallon is a British (Irish?) guy living in Mazatlán.  He knows his stuff, and he enjoys explaining the details.  We decided to haul-out to repair the saildrive, and add a couple fresh coats of anti-fouling paint to the bottom while we're at it.  We were planning to have the bottom painted in a couple months anyway.

Now the boat is sitting on stands in with Active Marine at the Fonatur yard in Mazatlán.  

It doesn't take long for growth to thoroughly foul the bottom.  The bottom paint does a pretty good job of preventing growth from sticking tightly, but the prop and sail-drive can't be coated as easily.  An oyster was growing inside the cooling water slots, and it had to be picked, broken and cleaned away.  The prop was covered with calcium that we scraped off with a putty knife.  Normally all this work is done underwater, making dive equipment necessary for boat maintenance.

We soon discovered the source of vibration: the prop was loose.  Our prop is a fancy: When motoring, the blades rotate to the angle needed for propulsion, but when sailing, the blades feather sideways, letting the water slide past.  Rigid props slow the boat as much as a knot, so it's a nice to have (when it's installed correctly). 

We removed the prop and shaft, and we replaced the lip-seal on the shaft.  The seal looked fine.  We decided vibration of the prop caused the seal to leak...not a slam-dunk reason for water leaking into the gearbox, but it was the best we could figure.  We did eliminate the prop wobble.  The nut that tightens it all up is indexed with pins that prevent the nut from loosening, so we torqued the bajesus out of it to line up the the next tighter holes.  So now it's all put-back-together , solid, and ready-to-go.

This weekend I installed a new VHF Radio with AIS.  AIS is a system that transmits my location and boat information to nearby boats, so I appear on their navigation screen as a little triangle.  It also receives the same information from other boats so I see them on my navigation screen, cell phone or tablet.  This combines with chart software, so I not only see the location of other boats, I see them real-time on a digital chart.  The software also detects possible collisions and sounds an alarms, monitors sensors aboard ship.  Because we have a connection to the internet via Starlink, the radio reports our position to the cloud, so anyone on the planet can observe our location.  Google Marine Traffic to see little triangles for every boat equipped with AIS around the globe.

We also got some festive hats to go with our swim suits.  Stay tuned.  Which color do you want to wear?  I see you eying the pink one.  That one's mine.