Yesterday we sailed the fifteen miles downwind to Tahiti’s little neighbouring island Moorea. Incredible what difference a smooth new antifouling makes–Pitufa was flying along with 7 knots…
Moorea’s a beautiful place with steep, green mountains and we’re planning on doing some exploring, even though it’s a bit hard to take time off for fun with still a lot of outstanding projects and (even worse) a leaking shaft seal… It’s nothing dramatic, but some water trickling in whenever the propeller’s spinning is still annoying and something to work out. It may stop by itself, if not we might have to take out the boat yet again.
2014
25
May
Holidays on Moorea
Last modified on May 25th, 2014
2 comments
Klaudio Krivičić says:
May 27, 2014 at 8:44 pm (UTC 0)
Hello! Haven’t heard from you a long time.. I see that you have some small problems on your journey and I just had to write to you. I don’t know what kind of shaft seal system do you have but you should not tolerate any leakings at all. If there are vibrations during operation, my guess is that your shaft is bent, and that’s very possible knowing the demage you had on your boat. When the shaft is bent following consequence is demage of a rubber bearing. If you feel the vibrations getting stronger you should necessarily pull out the shaft again. Correctness of the shaft can be checked on a lathe and repair with hydraulic presses. If you have any questions feel free to contact me.
I expect some new photos
Best regards!!
Christian says:
May 31, 2014 at 12:58 am (UTC 0)
Hi Klaudio,
good to hear from you. Thanks for your concerns and your advice. Our shaft seal is called ProfiSeal, it’s a rotating graphite ring pressing against a stationary counter ring in the housing. The shaft runs pretty smooth. According to the manufacturer, the most likely cause is that, after almost 2000 hours, a pronounced trace formed on the ring. Now, with new thrust bearing at a (most likely) slightly shifted position, this old trace no longer fits.
We’ll wait a while to observe whether the leaking gets better or worsens. And we order a service kit in case we have to replace the seal (and haul out again…)