The Port Saildrive

Way back during our early days in Mexico, we had some issues with the starboard engine, or more specifically, with the interface between the engine and the sail drive.  Well, the issue went back even earlier than that.  I think the very first time we noticed strange behavior was when we had just taken possession of Exodus and were travelling between San Diego and Marina del Rey via Catalina Island.  At the time, we were under motor, and I noticed our speed had dropped considerably.  Then Tim noticed that the trail behind us showed that the starboard engine wasn’t giving as much thrust as the port, and we shut it down.  When we started it again, it seemed to be fine.  After that, every once in a while, it wouldn’t engage when it should, especially in reverse.  By the time we made it to Puerto Escondio, it rarely, if ever worked, and Tim was able to fix it with some help from a guy on shore.

Now we were in Tonga, and we started noticing similar behavior with the port engine.  Tim and Steve spent the better part of a full day working on it.  At one point they realized they didn’t have a tool they needed, so they went to shore, but no luck.  So, they decided to go over to a mega-yacht and ask for help. They ended up talking to the head engineer, and he invited them on board, and he was indeed able to help them.  But the funny part was that he made them sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement).  We are familiar with these from work, when you are working with another company and have to sign that you won’t give away any of their secrets (oversimplification, but you get the idea).  So, I guess they saw lots of cool stuff on this mega-yacht, but they couldn’t tell us about any of it.

A couple days later we met Theo and Wanda on s/v Et Voila, a Lagoon 450 (think Exodus, but HUGE), and we heard they were having the same problem.  Since Tim had just gone through the process, he was able to help Theo with his and get it done in just a couple hours.  It was a great thing to realize that after a year and a half we’ve finally crossed the threshold of giving back to the cruising community.