Joined
·
3,970 Posts
Kind of a long story so I'll try to be brief. I delivered my brother's 34' Northsea pilothouse from the San Juan Islands to Lake Washington (Seattle) last month. Motored all the way (no wind), spent the night at Pt. Townsend, picked up my brother at Shilshole Marina, through the locks and five bridge openings and then the prop fell off about two miles from the slip (just off Billy Gates place for those that know the lake), had to be towed the last mile after trying to sail (at least we didn't have any prop drag
).
After being hauled out it was obvious the key sheared off (half was still in the keyway) and due to the design of the older Autoprop it spun itself off the shaft when we put the transmission in reverse while we were trying to figure out why we had no propulsion. We didn't hit anything that we know of, never heard or felt even a slight bump and we were at cruise speed in flat calm water at the time.
I'm guessing either something was hit at some point and the key just finally gave way, but the real mystery is that there were cracks in the fiberglass on either side of the shaft log that weren't there a couple of years ago at haulout. The shaft is true and the cutlass bearing and shaft tube are in good shape so what would have caused these cracks?
Thanks for any thoughts or WAG's
After being hauled out it was obvious the key sheared off (half was still in the keyway) and due to the design of the older Autoprop it spun itself off the shaft when we put the transmission in reverse while we were trying to figure out why we had no propulsion. We didn't hit anything that we know of, never heard or felt even a slight bump and we were at cruise speed in flat calm water at the time.
I'm guessing either something was hit at some point and the key just finally gave way, but the real mystery is that there were cracks in the fiberglass on either side of the shaft log that weren't there a couple of years ago at haulout. The shaft is true and the cutlass bearing and shaft tube are in good shape so what would have caused these cracks?



Thanks for any thoughts or WAG's