Sustainable Sailing

This has been worrying me for a long time. The last bolt was stuck.

But today I managed to drill the bolt out despite really tight access. I couldn’t get the drill in straight so used the Dremel with it’s flexible extension.

This allows us to sort out the, rather critical, detail of getting the propeller shaft to go from the motor on the inside of the boat to the propeller on the outside and spin without water getting into the boat around it 😊

It is all beautifully engineered bronze. As soon as all the bolts were removed the flange unscrewed perfectly from the threaded tube that is moulded in.

Next we will look at the outside end where there is a cutlass bearing.

Then we have to see if we can get a dripless seal that will fit around the tube of the flange. If not we will need to get a new custom made bronze flange with narrower tube.