12 Dec 2024
After hanging about in Gosport for a day we got the boat lifted out on Wednesday – the boat had already had the engine drained and the shelves above it removed and the cockpit floor freed up as that is where the engine exits – which meant that we had no engine and no steering, so the yard had to wait till the wind dropped before they could tow her to the lift.
The tow was interesting – I did my powerboat course years ago and it covered towing from a rib alonside, but the yard towed with the rib positioned as shown on the port quarter- 1 line forward to the midships cleat and one across to the starboard aft cleat which meant that the engine was a few meters aft of the stern, and so had much greater effectiveness at controlling the yacht’s direction because of the leverage about her keel.
The stern view is not a particularly clear photo, but the saildrive is visible just astern of the lifting strop. The thing that surprised me whas how full the hull is aft of the saildrive – almost a bustle, or looking pregnant – I’ll remember that when I’m manouvering because the effect is probably to move the centre of lateral water resistance aft. I haven’t done much manouvering yet, I’ve only taken her out of her berth two or three times, so haven’t found out how much the saildrive changes boats characteristics compared to a conventional shaft drive. When we do get her back in the water – probably sometime next week – it will be interesting to see how the new feathering propeller works when going from ahead to astern or v.v.