Pics of damage that jammed tranny in reverse

[NickScheuer]

strut, quarter view.JPG

prop.JPG

Pulled the boat out of the water yesterday and loaded onto her trailer. The chunk missing from the prop is obvious. The horizontal strut supporting the lower end of kthe rudder shaft is bent to starboard to the degree you see the rudder bearing situated slantwise instead of vertical. Anybody know how that strut is anchored in the fiberglass skeg? There are a couple of cracks in the skeg indicating that repair if needed, so I don't mind doing some surgery in order to get the strut out for straightening.

[NickScheuer]

The idea of using a side-operated prop puller in order to avoid having to drop the rudder has been obviated by the need to remove and straighten the rudder support strut. I just hope the prop shaft isn't bent, too.

[tribologist]

This gives some hints. Its the one for $3k on Craigslist I went to look at

[NickScheuer]

Thanks, tribologist! That does help.

[tribologist]

Did the tube bend? It looks like just the pipe-head rotated.

[NickScheuer]

The rudder shaft is still vertical, or very close to it. The horizontal strut is bent to starboard inside the fiberglass and the crack along the underside of the skeg (least thickness of fiberglass around the tube0 is approx 3/16" wide where the strut exits the skeg.

[NickScheuer]

If the strut has no significant barbs to anchor it inside the skeg, it shouldn't be very difficult to work it out. The fiberglass repair is no prob at all for me.

[tribologist]

It does not see to much load under normal use. Get some very heavy c-clamps and clamp two boards to hold it together and then bend it straight. Then you can open the cracks and repair them. I would avoid pulling tge tube out.

[kerrye]

Any idea what caused the damage to the prop? A rock sliding up alongside the keel??

[NickScheuer]

Water too murky to see kthe bottom. We grounded on a large shoal which extended beyond the marker buoy farther than I expected. My guess is that some of the stone was larger than "gravel"

[DesertAlbin736]

Son dove under boat w/scuba next day and found no fouled line, but a nickel-size chunk of prop blade missing at tip.. (quote from initial thread)

I just hope the prop shaft isn't bent, too.

Yep, for sure. No doubt you'll pull the shaft & have it checked. But I would guess the shaft was probably not bent since so little of it extends beyond the cutlass bearing. More likely the combination of the prop being out of balance & the shock loads on the tranny likely damaged the cone clutch (not that I'm familiar with the inner workings of marine transissions)

Chunk out of the prop looks bigger than a nickel. No wonder, that would have thrown it way out of balance. Looks like you've got your work cut out for you, but should be relatively straight forward repair beside needing a new prop.
This could well have happened to us, only instead of being a short towing distance from a nearby home marina we were on an island in another country many miles from where our trailer was parked. And where our trailer was parked was itself over 1,500 miles from home. We had run up on a shoal of very sharp jagged rocks near low tide (as it was at the time and lucky for us was on a rising tide with a 9 foot range) that was less than 2 feet under the surface. I guess it was also lucky that it was as shallow as it was since we struck on shallower part of the keel with the brunt of the impact well forward of the prop. If we'd been rendered inoperable or worse we would have had to take a ferry back to Anacortes, take a bus to Blaine to get our truck & trailer & put it on the ferry going back over to Vancouver Island, go through customs, load boat on the trailer and take the ferry back stateside, clear US customs, bringing an abrupt and very expensive end to our vacation. As it was, we had been loitering around through a mooring field at idle speed (the Admiral had the helm) waiting for our friends to clear Canadian customs at nearby Van Isle marina in Tsehum Harbour which, being our first time there, we were not familiar with. We were hard aground & the first thing I did was shut the engine down & make no attempt to back off, fearing exactly what happened to your boat. Instead I launched our dinghy, put the 2.5 HP outboard on it & attempted tow us off. That didn't work at first, as we were stuck fast. But the tide was on the rise, so within a half hour we could feel the boat start to rock. I took a boat hook & went around the sides of the boat in the dinghy taking "soundings" to see where the deeper water was, which behind the boat was over 3 feet deep. So I then tied the dinghy off to the aft starboard quarter, facing it aft & gunned the outboard & she finally floated free, no damage to the prop. When we got back to the ramp to haul out at the end of the cruise the only damage to be seen was number of small nicks & dings in the gelcoat along the bottom of the keel, but no damage to the prop, rudder, or skeg.

tsehum.jpg

[NickScheuer]

I think the difference between "nickel size" and reality shown in the photo indicatsd how murky the water was my son was diving in. The boat was moored in her slip and the depth under her keel was only 18 to 24 inches. Son was stirring up the mucky bottom walking by the stern and crawling under the keel..

[NickScheuer]

Thought I was going to have to buy or rent a wheel puller for the prop, but FOUND TWO (big and little) in a workshop drawer I rarely open. I've never used it, and don't know how I happened to own one, but I hardly ever borrow tools, so I'm sure it's mine. Had been looking for a couple of motor trowels I rarely need to use.

[Dieselram94]

Looks like that pipe is kinked pretty good. Maybe a new one is best course of action? I believe it’s just buried in the fiberglass.