Sail drive maintenance is easy to forget, ignore. Because you need to park your Seawind on the beach or on the hard.
Yanmar Sail Drive SD25 Manuals
- Operation manual,
- Parts Catalog
- and the Service Manual (still missing)
- Gori 3-blade manual for AB Marine
- Spare parts on board
Checking the gear oil before leaving for a long-distance trip, or else monthly, is part of my checks on the Engine. If possible I do a dive check before a long-distance trip and check three items:
- Cleaning the water inlet with a aluminium brush or/and a tooth brush (hard)
- Checking the Zinc anodes at the end of the shaft and on the Gori Props
- In general the condition of the Gori props and the blade fixing pins.
Initial 50 or yearly or 250 hours of Operation
The initial maintenance is the most vital one. Changing the oil in the Sail drives is necessary. New equipment generates debris, factory faults with o-rings etc, tighten bolts to the right torque. All important. Plan your route to be somewhere with facilities.
- Remove the dipstick, it’s easier for the oil to flow down completely to the drain plug.
- The oil should be (dark) brown, sticky. Not milky, then you have water leaking into the system. Properly a missing or damaged O-ring, with is a factory fault under warranty and requires a full service of the whole shaft.
- While out of the water carefully inspect all Zinc anodes and the Gori prop, including the blade fixing pins, replace them on a yearly base or sooner when eroded or damaged.
- I do check with an torque wrench if the props are secure (minus 5 nm not to unlock the lok tide). If not, undo them, lok tide blue and fasten them to the right torque. Losing a prop is the most common failure.
- Clean up and polish, repair a damage surface with an aluminium primer and paint.
- On a 250 hour schedule, it’s recommended the check the clutch shifter.
