Engine Mount Woes

Earlier this year Kraken was forced to skip a couple of regattas. During this time she was in the boatyard getting a fairly significant repair done and my pocket ended up lighter.

The summary of how we got to this state is that I snagged a line on the prop and after this had a fair amount more water in the grid than normal. This mainly collected under the sink but with water, or salt deposits found all around the after section of the boat. Kraken has always shipped a bit of water here and there and I was already starting to try to figure out where it was coming from, but after the prop fouling I pushed harder on this and the problem kept getting worse.

Eventually, with a sinking (ha) feeling, I found myself looking into the engine  compartment at water coming in through a hairline crack around the engine mount. This didn't leak just sitting at the dock but with the engine running and in forwards gear the mount visibly vibrated away from the hull and clean ocean water poured in.

This was the week before the NOODs so instead of competing Kraken was hauled and George at Oceanside Boat Yard started dismantling the engine bay.

During this process our insurance company (BoatUS, recently converted to using GEICO) had an engineer looking at the boat. Given the likely size of the repair I had my fingers crossed here.

What George found was that the original build process had just "slapped" the engine mount onto what looked like a weak epoxy / filler mixture. You could see where old oil had been leaking into this area. When pulling the mount off two small areas of glass ripped and it just "popped off".

Furthermore the top of the shaft that the saildrive drops down through was very thin, perhaps 1/8" of glass (see the hole in the mount below). Bear in mind that this is underwater exterior hull even if hidden by the plate that surrounds the sail drive leg exit (which isn't sealed). The tube itself wasn't very well made, a glass tube with some tabbing but lots of voids. Overall I'm not surprised at the water I'd always found in the engine compartment (not much prior to the line snag, but there).

Here's the upside down engine mount. See how thin the glass is where it connected to the tube? Also note the saildrive nuts that were rusting and only supported by some sealant - the engine bolts were the same. When the yard was pulling the engine one of the nuts actually dropped - something that would be tricky to repair if you weren't pulling the mount. Not the best of designs.

At this point I got some bad news, Geico pointed out my insurance policy had a "no manufacturer defects" clause. I have a vague memory of reading this and thinking that Kraken had been around the block enough for us to be past that point. Apparently not. With the evidence in front me it was not something I felt I could argue against.

Beneteau remained quiet to my inquiries. I'd contacted them through our local dealer to ask about what we might find as we pulled the mount apart (initially just looking for advice) and then again when Geico started pointing the finger their way. After more prompting I got a response through the dealer "we don't make them like that anymore".

Awesome.

At this point I'm not very happy with either Geico (well, my policy specifically) nor Beneteau. At the very least I'd have expected some basic information on how the mount was constructed could be easily provided.

Luckily in all this George was a ray of light. Though it was difficult keeping him on the boat - Oceanside is a small yard with a single fibreglass expert and other small jobs would come in and take precedence over Kraken - when he was on the boat his work was excellent. I would be worrying about details and come into the yard to talk about how everything was going to fit back together and he'd be a step ahead of me and have a plan. I ended up fully trusting the fix - Kraken probably has the strongest engine compartment of all the 36.7s now with a solid connection between the outer hull and the mount. And the engine compartment is now bone dry!

During this period we also cleaned up the engine (while it was out) and replaced the prop seals on the saildrive.

 Here are some pictures of things going back together!

And finally ready to return to the water!

 All in all this repair was very annoying. However I am glad that I found out by wrapping the prop and getting a slow leak rather than hitting a log and punching a hole in the bottom of the boat.