Technical Details

As we've mentioned our prop shaft broke just short of our destination last weekend.

We were about 5 miles north of Daytona Beach and heard a loud pop and lost power. We quickly got the anchor down and I went below into the engine compartment to investigate. I found the prop shaft broken right by the coupling.

After we got hauled we were able to really review the issue. Apparently the previous owner had challenges with the shaft coming out of the coupling. I'm guessing that because of the prop he installed that was massively over-pitched the force of the prop would pull the shaft out of the coupling. To remedy that someone drilled through the shaft and installed a 3/8" bolt to hold it in place. I totally missed this issue as did our surveyor and the yard at Oxford. It's pretty obvious the previous owner knew of this and the risk. By drilling through a 1.25" shaft with 3/8"the strength was reduced to 7/16". It's no wonder that under the stress of 3000 rpm the shaft eventually broke.

We are lucky that it didn't happen when we were 100 mi. offshore or when navigating some of the challenging channels we've been in. Fortunately we were in a mild current with water deep enough to anchor but shallow enough that had we sunk we would have been on the bottom with about a foot or so of water in the keel doing little or no damage.

During the entire trip we have had an issue with the bilge pump cycling on and we were unable to find any source of water incursion but water has been coming in through the shaft log since shortly after we left Oxford.

This past Tuesday we removed the shaft and drive assembly and hopefully will be able to get the replacement parts early this week. The shaft log will need to be epoxied in to seal it and then I can put some paint on the bottom and prop after we return from the cold.

Then we can be launched and the engine realigned.

The actual parts replacement are the shaft, engine coupling and we are replacing the cutlass bearing while it is out.

We have some other work to do while we're waiting for the parts so the time isn't wasted. Eventually when we get all the work done there will be beach days or time to just kick back in the cockpit on anchor with a nice rum drink.

Meanwhile the weather has been warmer than up north and Daytona is a nice town. The yard so far has been great and I feel comfortable with the work being done. The damage done by the previous owner is just another example of how some owners do really stupid stuff that they don't understand and emphasizes the need to do all work competently and check everything thoroughly.