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Magazine article
Either "Sail" or "Cruising Worl' did an article on saildrives in the past couple of months.
Either "Sail" or "Cruising Worl' did an article on saildrives in the past couple of months.
An archive search will give you some info and...
...the Sail magazine article of 4 months ago was informative in some respects, altho' biased by ignoring or downplaying important issues IMO. Saildrives give each party involved in making, selling and buying a boat some benefit. The designer can more easily shoehorn in place the powerplant and need provide no access to the shaft alley, thus providing a roomier layout which the builder can display at the show and feature in his ads; after all, we all like a boat that 'feels' bigger than it is. The builder also gets to cut a big hole in the hull and drop in situ the entire powertrain assembly. There's little alignment issue to deal with. Moreover, the drag of the leg and prop is usually less than a shaft, strut and prop. The engine builder, to the extent it is vertically integrated, now gets to sell an entire package to the builder: engine bed (not just the mounts), transmission and 'drive train' (the gear leg of the engine) along with its rubber seal...overall, a larger, more profitable package than when solely selling the engine and transmission. The buyer gets that large cabin, usually a lower vibration power train, and is presented with less (or no) prop walk when backing down heavily, something the new owner might like when wanting to back the boat in a straight line, altho' prop walk is at times an asset rather than a liability when parking the boat. Because this is a trend that suits all the commercial parties involved in boat building, and because the popular press (funded in part by their advertisers) doesn't want to antagonize this customer group too much (if at all...), you'll hear little from magazine articles about the downsides of a saildrive. Here are a few that I think deserve reflection: 1. That rubber seal has a finite lifespan. The engine must be pulled when replacing it, so this is something to consider when buying a used boat with a saildrive. 2. The shoehorned engine installation can present siginificant access problems. You may find the alternator and oil filter readily available, but e.g. can you pull the starter motor, replace the lift pump, tighten all mount bolts, etc.? 3. The gear leg has its own (hyphoid or gear) oil supply; builders have normally not made this easily changeable from within the boat, instead installing drain and fill holes in the leg much like those in an outboard's. Mfgrs. spec this oil to be changed every 100 hrs. Some sailing venues (e.g. New England) present short seasons and storage ashore, and so this isn't a problem for the owner, but imagine taking that boat down the ICW to Florida for the winter (or cruising the sailboat anywhere). Determining how to change the gear oil on an extended sailing voyage is a puzzle. (Some owners will snake a small plastic tube down from the top of the gear leg IF there is access to do so, and try to suck out what gear oil they can find. Mfgrs like Volvo report that sometimes these tubes get stuck in the leg's gearing, which means the engine must be pulled to fix). 4. Somewhat similar is the dilemma of zinc replacement. These gear legs are aluminum, potentially one large anode sticking in the water and waiting to dissolve, this process kept at bay solely by the zincs on the leg. Some zincs are not too difficult to replace from underwater - assuming good viz, decent water temps, limited tidal current, no surge - while others are more difficult since they have to be more integral wit the leg in order to provide protection. A boat with a sail drive being assigned a slip that turns out to be 'hot' electrically, and which will quickly consume the zincs without the owner necessarily having any clues, is a nightmare scenario. I see a lot of comparisons made between various European and American boats on BB's like this one but rarely does the distinction surface - and it should - that so far American builders favor a conventional engine installation while many Euro builders now install saildrives exclusively in boats <35'/10.5M. This is an inherent asset built into the American boats, but one few of us acknowledge. Jack
...the Sail magazine article of 4 months ago was informative in some respects, altho' biased by ignoring or downplaying important issues IMO. Saildrives give each party involved in making, selling and buying a boat some benefit. The designer can more easily shoehorn in place the powerplant and need provide no access to the shaft alley, thus providing a roomier layout which the builder can display at the show and feature in his ads; after all, we all like a boat that 'feels' bigger than it is. The builder also gets to cut a big hole in the hull and drop in situ the entire powertrain assembly. There's little alignment issue to deal with. Moreover, the drag of the leg and prop is usually less than a shaft, strut and prop. The engine builder, to the extent it is vertically integrated, now gets to sell an entire package to the builder: engine bed (not just the mounts), transmission and 'drive train' (the gear leg of the engine) along with its rubber seal...overall, a larger, more profitable package than when solely selling the engine and transmission. The buyer gets that large cabin, usually a lower vibration power train, and is presented with less (or no) prop walk when backing down heavily, something the new owner might like when wanting to back the boat in a straight line, altho' prop walk is at times an asset rather than a liability when parking the boat. Because this is a trend that suits all the commercial parties involved in boat building, and because the popular press (funded in part by their advertisers) doesn't want to antagonize this customer group too much (if at all...), you'll hear little from magazine articles about the downsides of a saildrive. Here are a few that I think deserve reflection: 1. That rubber seal has a finite lifespan. The engine must be pulled when replacing it, so this is something to consider when buying a used boat with a saildrive. 2. The shoehorned engine installation can present siginificant access problems. You may find the alternator and oil filter readily available, but e.g. can you pull the starter motor, replace the lift pump, tighten all mount bolts, etc.? 3. The gear leg has its own (hyphoid or gear) oil supply; builders have normally not made this easily changeable from within the boat, instead installing drain and fill holes in the leg much like those in an outboard's. Mfgrs. spec this oil to be changed every 100 hrs. Some sailing venues (e.g. New England) present short seasons and storage ashore, and so this isn't a problem for the owner, but imagine taking that boat down the ICW to Florida for the winter (or cruising the sailboat anywhere). Determining how to change the gear oil on an extended sailing voyage is a puzzle. (Some owners will snake a small plastic tube down from the top of the gear leg IF there is access to do so, and try to suck out what gear oil they can find. Mfgrs like Volvo report that sometimes these tubes get stuck in the leg's gearing, which means the engine must be pulled to fix). 4. Somewhat similar is the dilemma of zinc replacement. These gear legs are aluminum, potentially one large anode sticking in the water and waiting to dissolve, this process kept at bay solely by the zincs on the leg. Some zincs are not too difficult to replace from underwater - assuming good viz, decent water temps, limited tidal current, no surge - while others are more difficult since they have to be more integral wit the leg in order to provide protection. A boat with a sail drive being assigned a slip that turns out to be 'hot' electrically, and which will quickly consume the zincs without the owner necessarily having any clues, is a nightmare scenario. I see a lot of comparisons made between various European and American boats on BB's like this one but rarely does the distinction surface - and it should - that so far American builders favor a conventional engine installation while many Euro builders now install saildrives exclusively in boats <35'/10.5M. This is an inherent asset built into the American boats, but one few of us acknowledge. Jack
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