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It is of course possible to have had a secondhand boat for two years and be commissioning a brand new one. That's definitely not the impression I got from his previous posts though.

Besides learning so much about Sea Hustler's engine and what makes her tick over the past 7 months, another thing I have learnt is that she has all the sailing attributes of a victorian house brick. I was involved in a lengthy thread last season about how do you get her head through the wind, Try as I might, she would come so far round then simply fall off the wind and refuse to change tack. I have since learnt from the elderly guy in our yard who owned one of these boats many years ago, 'that you don't. She is a 50/50 motor sailer. which to be more accurate would be a 10/90 motor sailer. Only in a fair wind would you sail so anything from a beam reach to running wing on wing would be fine, anything closer to the wind requires four cylinders in line. I will post a round up and include what ever I an when we take her out next on her first trip since going back in the water with her new prosthetic leg and shiny new bits and pieces. I've noticed that too Tony. besides just about everything being connected at some point or other, everything comes back to just a single anode fixed through the hull on the starboard quarter and two additional abnodes, one eithe rside of the skeg which in truth don't appear to be doing much as the are only fractionaly corroded.

Considering how much some people complain about passing boats, watching a soliton wave go past them would be entertaining!

Has anyone tried these, Nordlock washers, to secure their prop? No pin needed.

Not my expertise. The steel Bruce Robert’s rotted in a marina in southern France when my friend who owned her was ill and failed to keep up with the maintenance i wouldn’t worry about the Galvanic Isolator for a moored yacht but anodes are a must! good shortish youtube by Force Four called Boat Anodes Everything You Need to Know may be worth watching It would be good to have some photos of Sea Hustler under full sail when you get a chance

Thanks for that, fascinating bit of film. The virtually complete lack of moored boats is quite a contrast to today.

Yes Marston Doles is the top two locks and it is only those two, by name and lock numbers that are referenced in the stoppage notice. In the past they have had restrictions on just Marston Doles, to protect the summit level, and the actual Napton flight has been unrestricted.

Roll pin is definitely better. Not difficult to remove later with a parallel punch the right diameter. Split pins are a bodge really. ETA I suppose in a castellated nut it could be awkward to punch a roll pin out as the top might spread a bit. In a standard nut it would be easy. There is a risk that someone later undoing the nut may not realise it is pinned because the roll pin is hollow. So they might force the nut and get into all sorts of problems. At least a split pin is obviously a pin. It depends on who is doing the work and what they know.

I suggest that a split pin is not the best way of securing the nut. I have experienced the ends of the pin being broken off by constant battering by rubbish on the prop and the pin then falling out. Since then I have used a Stainless roll pin (sometimes called a spring pin), pressed into the castellations of the nut and ground off flush with the sides of the nut. , never a problem since but a bit more difficult to remove at prop servicing time.

I think what you’re after usually crops up when talking to folk locally, and if your face fits type of thing, good luck, things will fall in to place 👍

Not long I suspect - we lost a prop many years ago (just below Bingly 5 rise if anybody wants to go and look), which had been on about 6 months. The pin had sheared off cleanly in the shaft when the nut unscrewed itself. My take on it is that if the prop is firmly on it’s taper and the keyway is a good fit and the nut tight then the split pin probably does nothing, and if the prop can rotate relative to the shaft then it won’t take long for it to undo the nut, the split pin doing little to prevent it in this case. It should go without saying to use a stainless pin, but I’ve seen mild steel used by some boatbuilders who should know better.

Hope you feel better soon. Marianne x

Yes, I am really not interested in house buying, I'm on the look out for an end of garden type mooring, should be near Services. Thanks for those who expressed concern, I think this is a one off, and I should recover, its just been exhausting as much as anything.

If something like a prop works loose off its a taper I wonder how long a splitpin would last before it gets fatiqued/sheared off?

When my prop was swapped, it was seated so well that, even with the nut off and a puller put on it, it would not budge. It required a gas torch on it to get it to shift. Somehow the particularities of the orientation of a split pin doesn't seem like a big deal to me. If it's on and won't obviously wiggle loose.... seems fine. On an aircraft, sure... if that prop comes off it's a bit worse!

My old VW van steering box had tapered splines, it was a nightmare pulling it apart. A taper is a very good thing. I have personally never known anything with a splitpin come undone, though things with locking tabs have, but thats probably just co-incidence. The more I think about this splitpins are just a bad idea, maybe the concept is that something works loose and you hopefully hear it in some way and the splitpin gives you a little time to take action before the prop/wheel or whatever falls right off 😀

No I don’t think it was rubbish, the point about the castellated nut (or its absence) was cogent. I think the point is to try to avoid the nut being able to rotate a bit, which could cause fretting especially in an application where the direction of rotation / load reverses. Whether the tangs are bent circumferentially or radially is not significant since the bending is only to stop the pin from sliding out and there is no significant force trying to make that happen - in fact the offset mass of the pin is only going to pull it in when rotated fast. But locking things subject to heavy load only by means of a split pin isn’t great design, the primary means should be friction and bolt stretching, which admittedly is tricky with a fairly short “bolt” and dissimilar metals (with different thermal expansion coefficients). But fortunately the tapered shaft adds plenty of friction!

Chatting to the lockie today he said that he didn't think the Napton flight would be locked at 4pm so passage through would be possible to exit the flight going down or moor up in the flight going up. This would explain the lack of a stoppage notice even though there are notices on the lock beams.