Travels and boat care
Mike, Clare, Will, Meg and Angus visited Moila Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29 July. We played Uno on Tuesday evening, and went for a sail on Wednesday.
Visiting the cruise liners, then on to Durdle Door. Perfect day with a 8-10 knot easterly, and some sea breeze. 21 NM.
We took delivery of a new flagstaff and ensign.
34 NM took us up the Dorset coast to St Alben Head and back.
60 NM in very little wind. We motored most of the way with a strong tide with us. We made very good time and got to Portland Bill at about slack water. We then followed the advice of the pilot book and gave it a wide berth (3-4 NM) – we went around both the Shambles bank cardinals. This paid off massively as the tide turned against. We watched two yachts who were trying to use the inner channel get swept backwards, and then eventually have to give up!
Despite its size, our 2.9m 3D Superlight Twin Air tender was unpacked and inflated in about 15 minutes. Greatly assisted by an enthusiastic crew!
Mounting the outboard can be done in 2 stages. First the motor, shaft and tiller, and then clip the battery on top. This means each part is lighter and easier.
The ePropulsion is unbelievably quiet!
But it pushes along the tender very nicely.
Our shiny new propeller is now fitted to Molia’s saildrive.
Nearly ready for a launch! We just need to anti-foul the saildrive and round its seal.
(The saildrive was in the Engineer’s shed when we painted the rest of the hull.)
We first thought that the propeller hub alone could be replaced. But it turned out that the existing folding propeller on Molia was not made by Volvo, so it proved impossible at present to identify and locate a replacement part.
I must give a shout out here to FYB Marine in Falmouth, who are the official Volvo Penta Service Dealers for Cornwall, and in particular to Jerry Hobkirk there who advised on the correct specification for a new propeller. Not something I could have done.
Molia has a 19 HP Volvo Penta D1-20 engine coupled to a Volvo saildrive 130S-B. Jerry ran the propeller size calculation which takes into account the engine, the gear ratio (2.19), the waterline length (8.62m) and maximum beam (3.4m). It comes up with a 2-blade 16×10 left-hand propeller, and I had already specified that it must fold.
Apparently all the prop shafts over a certain Volvo Penta saildrive size (including the 130S-B) are the same.
I will post a photo of the new propeller here – as soon as it arrives.
Jerry is a mine of useful information and advice about these Volvo engines. All very much appreciated for an engine beginner like me!