Alignment of keel, rudder and prop skeg on Oceanis 34?

[Softlad]

With an Oceanis 34 out on the hard-standing, I happened to look down the length of the boat and noticed that the skeg/prop shaft tunnel does not sit on the centreline of the boat with the keel and rudder. Rather, it has a very slight angle coming down towards the front of the rudder from starboard of the centreline.

It struck me as odd that the keel, prop and rudder don't all align on the centreline. Is this by design...either to counter prop walk in some way, or to allow the prop shaft to slip past the rudder when changing the cutlass bearing for example?

 

[DougM]

It could be that there is just enough angle there to allow the prop shaft to slip by the rudder if it has to be removed, that would be the good news. The bad news would be that the engine/prop shaft is really a bit out of alignment. Somehow, I would be surprised if the designers really thought that far ahead during the design and build process. It would beat having to drop the rudder to change the cutlass bearing.

 

[Captn TJ]

Quite a few older boats were built with the shaft off center ie C&C's