I recently purchased a 1980 Creekmore 45' that has yet to be completed and was just launched for the first time last October. The other day I finished hooking up the
engine controls and drivetrain to see if everything was working and sure enough it wasn't... When I put the
transmission in forward I had reverse thrust and vice versa. At first I thought that I had hooked up the controls wrong, but I triple checked and that was all correct. Here is how everything is set up:
Westerbeke W80 reverse mounted into a Velvet Drive C71 (Model 10-17-004, Ratio 1:1) then to a Walter RV-20 V-Drive (Ratio 2.56:1) and finally into a West Mekan AS Type 40 HV3 Controllable
Pitch Prop setup (no, it doesn't go far enough to reverse the thrust; I checked). All of these have zero hours on them and were just connected for the first time on Monday, with the exception of the
engine which was started about once a month since the 80's.
I have been able to find
manuals and specs online for everything except the West Mekan prop assembly. I believe it is Dutch or Scandinavian or something. From everything I have read it sounds like everything is working properly, but I just have the wrong V-Drive. I see that there is an RV-20 available with an idler
gear to reverse the prop direction, but that is not the one I have. The only thing is that the original owner of the
boat seemed to plan everything out meticulously and to exact specifications, so this seems like a very unlikely oversight.
I know I can't run it in reverse to get forward thrust, and I can't think of any other solution except swapping out the V-Drive. Can anyone with some more experience tell me if there is something else I am missing in terms of this setup? I just don't want to switch out the original
parts to find out that there was some other setting I could have put things in to make it
work properly.
Also, has anyone ever heard of the type of West Mekan setup I have or know where I could find some literature on it? I emailed the company directly, but never received a response.