Seatorque enclosed drive shaft

[jck339]

Does anyone here have exprience with the Seatorque enclosed drive shafts?

My Boat US magazine had a brief story on the product and I did what all 21'st century americans do and googled it. No stuffing box or shaft seals at all. No water intrusion. Integral U joint so minimizes alignment issues and an integral thrust bearing to minimize vibration. No cutless bearings. 3,000 hour before maintenance is required. What's not to like?

Curry

[Zach]

Cool stuff. Seems to be a well thought out solution, to an improperly aligned motor with the added benefit of better efficiency.

I wouldnt use one if I was looking for it to last forever... and be rebuildable in any third world country. Lots of stuff going on in there!

[hellosailor]

It looks like they have actually internalized the stuffing box, since they still use a shaft in the water plus a shaft in the boat. So instead of having an accessible stuffing box, you have one now built inside their "tube" where it isn't so easy to reach.

On the other hand, that means they can use better(?) seals and tighter alignment so it might work better in the end. Looks like the big savings in in layup, since you'd just be bolting a "solid" tube through the hull without having to so any shaft alignment, strut, etc. High tech permanent shaft seals (graphite seals, stainless seals, etc.) can run 10-20 years without incident so maybe that's good enough. OTOH, "out of sight out of mind" and inaccessible parts...Kinda like one of them newfangled automatic transmissions in a car, huh?<G>

[PeterS]

Hi all:

The shaft system is actually as simple as it sounds, there are no stuffing boxes, the shaft is enclosed in a stainless casing from the propeller end to the thrust bearing housing end, it is oil filled and sealed both ends with all rubber high performance lip seals which basically sets the 3000 hour maintenance cycle. I have traveled many miles in boats fitted with the earlier seatorque systems installed and they are quiet and smooth, the new full production systems are extremely bullet proof and now include an internal oil impeller to circulate the oil through the system and back to the oil reservoir mounted in the engine room.