Any thoughts? …… We have a new Southerly 42 with a 4JH5E Yanmar engine and MaxProp. We experienced the following ‘series of unfortunate events’.
- The first event occurred while backing out of a rafting situation. The backing process was proceeding in an orderly fashion when I shifted into forward to slow the boat, but instead received more reverse acceleration. After four more attempts I finally achieved forward.
- The second event occurred the same day after sailing a regatta. I was approaching a mooring pontoon in forward gear under good control and shifted into reverse to slow the boat, but reverse did not engage. I proceeded in forward gear, re-circling the pontoon and landing safely. I did not use reverse for this second attempt. A marine mechanic on site inspected the gear box and linkage at this time, but could find no problems. He did identify that neutral was not in the ‘normal’ perpendicular position, but slightly forward of perpendicular.
- The third event occurred four days later (after successfully docking in two different ports). This day we had been sailing in a 20 knot breeze for 4+ hours before coming into port and attempting to dock in wind and tidal currents. Again, while proceeding with docking maneuvers the reverse did not engage. Not five minutes after we drifted into the dock a marine mechanic came to help us. He immediately identified that we had no reverse and made mechanical adjustments to the linkage cable at the level of the gear box which restored our ability to shift into reverse.
You will no doubt agree that intermittent problems are hard to diagnose. Are there any mechanics out there who have input or anyone who has had a similar problem?
- The first event occurred while backing out of a rafting situation. The backing process was proceeding in an orderly fashion when I shifted into forward to slow the boat, but instead received more reverse acceleration. After four more attempts I finally achieved forward.
- The second event occurred the same day after sailing a regatta. I was approaching a mooring pontoon in forward gear under good control and shifted into reverse to slow the boat, but reverse did not engage. I proceeded in forward gear, re-circling the pontoon and landing safely. I did not use reverse for this second attempt. A marine mechanic on site inspected the gear box and linkage at this time, but could find no problems. He did identify that neutral was not in the ‘normal’ perpendicular position, but slightly forward of perpendicular.
- The third event occurred four days later (after successfully docking in two different ports). This day we had been sailing in a 20 knot breeze for 4+ hours before coming into port and attempting to dock in wind and tidal currents. Again, while proceeding with docking maneuvers the reverse did not engage. Not five minutes after we drifted into the dock a marine mechanic came to help us. He immediately identified that we had no reverse and made mechanical adjustments to the linkage cable at the level of the gear box which restored our ability to shift into reverse.
You will no doubt agree that intermittent problems are hard to diagnose. Are there any mechanics out there who have input or anyone who has had a similar problem?
