Weekend of 1st march MJB
The boat was taken out of the water this week and placed in the boat yard.
We had Friday and Monday off work in order to do a few maintenance jobs required before the trip.
I had made a special hub puller just for this job and am pleased to say it worked a treat, and the prop shaft was quickly removed.
Whilst this was going on Ann-Marie was busy washing the hull of the boat with various detergents and our secret weapon ALDI caravan and black streak remover.
We then went into Largs and had a fish and chip supper at Nardinis
Saturday morning came and the first jobs were cleaning the propshaft, propeller, and servicing the rope cutter which means lots of polishing and removal of barnacles and other marine things.
The next job was replacing the cutlass bearing. It is held in by 2 M6 plastic screws which sheared off when an attempt was made to remove them so they were carefully drilled out with the hand drill. The rubber bearing could then be prised out and the P bracket cleaned. The new bearing was pushed into place and the first plastic retaining screw inserted and tightened. Then disaster! The second screw sheared off half way in (I hadn’t cleaned the thread out after removing the old screw).
What now? I couldn’t leave it as it was, I couldn’t really put the prop shaft back in and carry on, it was 0935 on Saturday morning in a boatyard in Largs and I needed a M6*12mm raised head countersunk nylon screw what were my chances?
Luckily at Largs are Euroyachts, a main agent Jeanneau dealer, maybe they could help. Dressed like a vagrant I entered their very trendy Yacht dealership full of mega boats and asked if they had a plastic screw. ‘I don’t think so was the reply but hang on‘. After a while he came back with a large plastic bag full of all sorts of bits and pieces and emptied it on the shiny meeting room table. Lots of small plastic bags were investigated and then ‘ahah I thought so’ a small bag with two of the screws was discovered. I was given one and told there would be no charge.
He didn’t have to look but he did. Customer service from a mega yacht to a plastic screw is hard to find but available at Euroyachts in Largs. Thank You.
Back to the job in hand. I cleaned out the threads tightened the new screw and re inserted the prop shaft.
As the weather was not great, and rain was threatened, Ann-Marie suggested that whilst the weather was still dry we should do the antifouling, so after much washing, scraping and preparation a new coat of international EU antifoul was applied.
The seal for the prop shaft was a Volvo shaft seal that needed to be burped whenever the boat had dried out to remove the air from the water lubricated seal. I replaced this with a RMTA seal from Sillette as it does not need burping. It does however require a vent pipe to be positioned above the waterline.
As the hub was starting to rust it was treated to a coat of paint and everything was re assembled.
As the weather was not great, and rain was threatened, Ann-Marie suggested that whilst the weather was still dry we should do the antifouling, so after much washing, scraping and preparation a new coat of international EU antifoul was applied.
New anodes were then fitted to the propeller, prop shaft and rope cutter.
The seacocks and skin fittings were then checked for correct operation and greased from the outside. They were also photographed to check for de-zincification.The keel raising mechanism can only be greased when the boat is out of the water, which is done from the inside and involves winding the screw up as the keel cannot go down.
Meal tonight was a super meal at the Indian restaurant in Largs.
Sunday we both ached from antifouling. It was raining hard so Sunday papers, breakfast, tidy up and home.
Sounds like you had a bit of a heart stopping moment with the dodgy screws. Good of the dealer to come up with the goods. Perhaps he thought you were some eccentric millionaire!!
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