RONHARDIN

[RONHARDIN]

GOOD MORNING,

HOPE SOMEONE HAS ENCOUNTERED THIS PROBLEM AND CAN GIVE ME SOME ADVISE.

MY 2005 HUNTER 41 AC WAS FINE UNDER POWER UNTIL THE HAUL OUT FOR BOTTOM PAINT THIS YEAR. ON HAUL OUT IT WAS SUGGESTED THAT THE CUTLASS BEARING BE REPLACED AND PACKING GLAND BE REDONE WITH THE NEW PACKING. WHEN THE BOAT WAS PUT BACK IN THE WATER AND ON THE WAY BACK TO MY SLIP THE BOAT PULLED HARD TO PORT. WHEN AT LOW POWER I LET HELM LOOSE THE BOAT TURNED HARD TO PORT. MY STEERING IS WHITLOCK NOW OWNED BY LEWMAR BEING A ROD, NOT THE CABLE OR CHAIN QUADRANT. SO FAR AND LOGIC POINTS TO RUDDER, HOWEVER THE RUDDER DIDN'T HAVE TO BE REMOVED FOR THE BEARING BEING REPLACED.

HELP,

RON

[skipperpete]

Was the helm response problem immediate or did it develop after a bit of motoring? Did the engine respond to the throttle in the usual way?
Is your boat fitted with a Maxprop? If it is, and the Maxprop was incorrectly re-assembled with way too much pitch after being removed to replace the stern bearing this can cause your boat to perform as you described. Usually the boatspeed at idle is very fast and the engine won't achieve high rpm. Boats with full keels are less prone to this but fin keels allow very rapid response to propwalk.

[Reefmagnet]

Get the engine alignment checked

[fstbttms]

1.- Why are you typing in all caps?

2.- You posted your question in a sub-forum for tech support for this site, not in a sub-forum for mechanical issues, or issues with your model boat or anything else even remotely related to your problem.

[RONHARDIN]

Skipper Pete, Thank you for the reply. My mistake of lack of details. Prop is fixed pitch 3 blade, motoring in the normal manor accelerating normal when leaving the dock and pulled port immediately, same pull to 2000 rpm. I talked to a prop shop and they said fixed pitch would give vibration but not the turn to port.

Reefmagnet, Thanks I should have mentioned that after the discovery the company that installed the Cutlass Bearing did align the shaft and no change.

fstbttms Sorry for all caps, guess Cap Lock was on and I didn't correct
Sorry that I posted incorrectly this is my first posting and not being familiar with the working of the forums maybe after 3 or 4 thousand posts I will get it right

[skipperpete]

Hi Ronhardin
Sorry for the deluge of totally irrelevant information.
Now I have no really valid solutions to offer other than that the shore engineer that did the work might have released the steering mechanism to move the rudder beyond the normal travel range to get the shaft past it on the way out.
It still sounds like prop walk but if its the same prop then there's no way it would change from before the haulout.
Good luck with the solution.