I have a Catalina 400 Mk ll it has a 56 hp Yanmar.... is it recommended to sail while the transmission is in neutral or should I place transmission in reverse which stops the prop while sailing? Which is correct?
Sailing in gear?
- Thread starter Chuck Reynolds
- Start date
what yanmar said is what i would do or you could find yourself getting a new 3000.00 transmission at your expense
Neutral unless you have a folding or feathering prop, in which case shift to reverse when you kill the engine to allow the blades to fold/rotate and then back to neutral. You could probably keep it in reverse without issue but then you run the risk of starting in reverse. Never forward.
We had a particularly un-nerving, unique experience back 16 years ago in our F-P Antigua-37 cat off off Costa Rica, with dual Yanmar 18hp's and Max Props, reverse gear engaged on both to feather.
We were sailing in a thunder-squall reaching at 8-10 knots deeply reefed, with very short choppy 3-5' seas, when suddenly there was a shuddering vibration from below, as if we had run aground. Turns out that one of the the cat's sudden pitches threw the blades into reverse config. on one engine, and the engine was being turned over!
A ballasted monomaran has definitely a better damped motion in these conditions, at the expense of going more slowly, and comfortably, through rather than over waves - but the unballasted cat hauls the mail at the expense of comfort!
Pete