The belts have a smooth side and a side with cuts in it that resemble teeth. The smooth side is normally on the outside of the loop of the belt and the tooth side is on the inside. The belt normally is tightened by a cam operated by a lever on the drive motor, and the inside or the toothed side of the belt rides on a smooth pulley groove of the large pulley mounted on the wheel. On a larger boat, the friction between the inside of the belt and the smooth pulley is insufficient to stop the belt from slipping. So if you take an extra belt , turn it inside out so that the teeth are on the outside, measure the circumference of the pulley, cut the extra belt to fit just around the circumference of the big pulley and glue it there, you will have a toothed pulley whose teeth mate with the teeth of the drive belt. This eliminates most of the slippage but if you get rounded up real hard there will be some slippage because the teeth will bend and the drive belt jumps. It works well about 90% of the time however.
This little trick was given to me by NAVICO but they never advertised it because of liability considerations, but it was the only way the wheelpilot would work on 37-38 foot boats over 20,000 lbs.
Have fun
Joe S
