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shaft lock

mike cunningham

mike cunningham

Freedom 30 "Jacqueline"
During the last SHTP I was placing my tranny in reverse when not charging (I have a fixed prop on jacqueline). I would shift to neutral to charge. After a few days of this it was getting really hard to get the tranny out of reverse and when I put it back in reverse after charging I would hear a loud clunk...uh oh! I was wondering if I would be able to get the motor into gear once I got to Hanalei. I though maybe I screwed something up. In the end, all was well, thank goodness.

But after the clunk experience I rooted around in storage and found an 18 inch by 3/4 by 2 inch length of birch which I proceed to jam between the shaft coupling and the hull in order to stop shaft rotation. I just left the tranny in neutral from then on. It blew me away how much torque the prop was imparting to the shaft at six knots. This got to be really ugly on the way back when I was intermittently motoring. I put a glove on the shifter in the cockpit when I had the stick jammed so I would not accidentally put the boat in gear with the shaft immobilized.

At any rate, there has to be a better way. Well, I THINK there has to be a better way. Is these some sort of shaft lock anyone is using or is the "stick lock" as good as its going to get?
 
I used to judge boat speed by the hum of the prop because Yanmar said not to put the transmission in reverse. If it bothered me too much, I'd being the boat up in the wind to slow to about 2-3 knots, which would take the pressure off the prop to take it out of reverse. Works OK if you're not racing. Now, I have a folding prop, but I think it's overdue for a greasing because it started to spin/hum again during the SHTP. Not exactly the answer you were looking for, is it....?
 
Gamayun said:
I used to judge boat speed by the hum of the prop because Yanmar said not to put the transmission in reverse. If it bothered me too much, I'd being the boat up in the wind to slow to about 2-3 knots, which would take the pressure off the prop to take it out of reverse. Works OK if you're not racing. Now, I have a folding prop, but I think it's overdue for a greasing because it started to spin/hum again during the SHTP. Not exactly the answer you were looking for, is it....?
Click to expand...

Yes, did that too in the old days but 5000 miles of rotation on my new shaft seal seemed like a lot of wear and tear. I was hoping to avoid that.
 
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