November 4, 2016
Acadia 30
Friday
Next on my agenda was to install the new propeller, a 3-blade feathering J-prop. Unpacking the components from the box, and looking through the instructions, I dismantled what I needed to and prepared all the parts for installation. The first pieces were a spacer–clearly marked in the box (there was another type of spacer in the box also) and a sacrificial anode.
Next, I installed the hub center and Morse taper. This process took a little while, as the center was grooved to match the grooves on the Saildrive shaft, and there were two small keys that needed to line up after the threaded Morse taper was installed and tightened–a trial and error process requiring a few repositionings of the grooved center piece.
With the center hub in place, and the little keys secured, I installed the propeller itself, slipping it over the shaft and aligning it with the holes in the center hub. Then, I used the supplied wrench to tighten the internal prop nut, located within the prop hub itself.
Afterwards, I finished up the installation with a smaller Allen bolt inside the hub, followed by the external zinc at the end of the prop. For now, I did not make any adjustments to the propeller pitch, so the blades were basically flat when opened all the way.
Later, I applied two coats of bottom paint to the area around the leg, including the rubber boot. I did not apply any bottom paint to the leg, which came from the factory with a white paint.
Back inside the boat, I continued work on the starboard water tank. I build a new plywood cleat for the aft end of the space, and modified an existing cleat from the forward end, to accept longitudinal braces, as I’d done on the port side earlier. Here, the amount of available room was less, so the new braces had to be smaller in their height dimension. The smaller, outboard brace required two screws into the plywood top to hold it in the center of the field, as it tended to bow upwards slightly.
The locker spaces forward of each water tank were worn and dirty, and after some sanding and cleannup, I applied Bilgekote in these areas to brighten them and make them easier to keep clean in the future.
Total time billed on this job today: 5 hours
0600 Weather Observation:
36°, clear. Forecast for the day: Sunny, 49°