When asked to perform the annual engine revision of this Lagoon 450F, we encountered traces of water mixed with the sail drive oil. A definitive sign that there has been a leak somewhere. The boat owner told us he’d caught fishing lines around the sail drive a couple of times that summer, so we ran some tests with new oil.
After a couple weeks when the boat sailed to and back from the Egadi islands, the water was back inside the shaft, and we knew the seal needed to be changed.
On top of this, the owner shared with us the fact that he had to change the cone shifter on this engine every three years on average since the boat was leached in 2011. A definitive sign that something was wrong in this sail drive, and we were going to look after it.
At this time, the engine’s hours read 2400h on starboard, and 2397h on port side.
We worked with Rafik on this project. With over 20 years of experience, Rafik has been working on fishing boats with engines his age as well as on recent sailing and motor boats engines. He would usually get the hint on the problem by the sound of it. If not by the sound, by the smell of it.
Here in Licata, we like to think of Rafik as the engine’s whisperer 🙂
Nonetheless we downloaded the SD50 Operating Manual on our tablet to make sure we had any information handy while working the unit.
Although he does talk and cagole them, in this instance it started with dismounting the sail drive, and taking it to the workshop.
After dismounting it to its last bit, we did find out the cone shifter wasn’t set correctly, inducing an over than usual wear.
We took this opportunity to check and clean every other part of the sail drive, as stripping them down isn’t a job which is performed this often. We didn’t notice any other issue.
After cleaning everything and changing the seal, we were able to remount the sail drive and proudly set it back in its rightful place.
And called it a day.
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