Orana 44: Sail Drive/Hull Internal Rubber Boot

[AllenRbrts]

On the Goiot escape hatches, the bezel can come out of the frame, it is only glued onto the frame with silicone. Then you have a 3 sq ft hole in the side of your boat.

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by AllenRbrts

On the Goiot escape hatches, the bezel can come out of the frame, it is only glued onto the frame with silicone. Then you have a 3 sq ft hole in the side of your boat.

Yeah, there is a thread on here somewhere about a failed escape hatch underway...not good.

[noblewarrior]

Re saildrive; I replaced mine a yera ago I reckon it was about 18 years old. I have had the replacement on board for a few years waiting for the oppertunity to do it. When I took the old one out initially it looked fine,. however when I bent it at the junctio with the fixing plate, there was a deep split in the rubber. This is not apparent when in situ, I was glad I did it when I did.
The job is not easy, I have a volvo MD17D and a 120s saildrive, lots of hard to get at bolts etc. but worth it.

[rabbi]

Re failure modes of SD sails:
As already mentioned on another thread we had a failure back in 2011 on a Yanmar SD20 due to brute force.
We sailed at full speed into a huge pile of disposed fishing net, which stopped us within a second. The pile of net was the size of a house, and floating just under the surface.

It was visible by the old dirt marks around the SD that it had moved a few mm and we took very small amounts of water. Just enough to trigger the bilgepump every few hours.

After liftout it became clear that the seal was still OK, but the fibreglass around the bolts was cracked and water was creeping in through these cracks.

This happened just weeks after we replaced these seals, no clue if the old ones (although looking as new) would have survived as well.


This happened on our Lagoon 410, which had the engines under the bed and no watertight bulkhead. That -in combination with crossing the atlantic- was the reason to replace the seals.

I don't know about the FP Orana but if its like our FP Mahe with watertight bulkheads glassed into place and no penetrations below bridgedeck level I would not change the seals without good reason.
there are better ways to spend the money to improve safety.

[pstadt]

Great feedback, thanks to all!

Pat