It has been quite some time since I have posted on our blog. The winter months passed uneventfully in Monterey where we kept the boat. Unfortunately, our plans of spending considerable time enjoying Monterey did not work out as well as hoped. It just seemed we were too busy to drive/fly to Monterey. Funny how that is even though we are pretty well retired! The marina where we kept the boat, Breakwater Cove Marina, was very nice and they also had a boat yard. We had hit a log during our trek south through British Columbia so I decided it was best to have the boat taken out of the water so an inspection could be done. Floating logs are quite a big danger, and in a worse case scenario boats can actually be sunk by logs penetrating the hull. Usually though hitting a log results in propeller damage. This is easily discernible by feeling vibration when the boat is moving. We had not felt any vibration so I was hopeful there was no damage. Unfortunately, one of our propellers had a bent blade. For non boaters, we have two engines, so thus two props. They are each three bladed and 30 inches in diameter. Propellers need to be tuned periodically, even if you do not hit anything, in order to get the most efficiency from them. This is a function of how many engine hours a boat is actually used. For us this is probably every three to four years. UNLESS, you hit something!Our boat has to be out of the water, the propellers removed, and sent to a propeller repair facility where the blade(s) are straightened and the propeller is balanced to be sure when remounted there is no vibration. Here are some before and after photos of this process:
in middle and hole at front is the bow thruster
I realize this was mostly a technical blog, mainly for those of you interested in those sort of things.
Chuck and Margaret
