Giving Nirvana The Shaft!

Ken took advantage of one of the few dry days between Christmas and New Year's to install Nirvana's new shaft.  This meant also installing a new coupling, stuffing box with packing and hose kit with clamps.  Once installed, new zincs and our 3-blade prop were attached.  I took the picture below after the installation to show how much of a PITA it is to get to our stuffing box.  We love our Catalina, but placing the cabinet wall directly over the stuffing box had to be a cruel joke.  Needless to say, Ken wasn't laughing.  

We both can't wait to get out of the yard, and remember our deck painting project?  Well, Ken has repainted the one side section that we don't like TWO more times (with a brush instead of spray) and it's not looking any better ... so many brush strokes!  Of course, this "bad" area is in view from the cockpit and it's gonna drive us nuts until we fix it.  The yard can be a frustrating place, so we decided to move on and address the one "bad" section in the marina at a later date.  

Our new coupling came from a local place that also has a web site, Alario Brothers, and it was brought to the local machinist to make the new shaft.  The new shaft is composed of Aqualoy 17, and you can read more about it on the link that I found here.

We ordered the stuffing box with packing (for 1" shaft) #Z2000 and the stuffing box hose kit #Z3058 from Catalina Direct.  It was tough trying to find the right hose locally, and even after ordering the hose kit from Catalina Direct, Ken still had to cut about a half inch off the hose to make it work.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the new packing is a composite fiber packing material that we hope will be as good as it sounds.

We purchased this 3-blade prop during our first haul-out in 2010.  Yep, we gave up "speed" and the 2-blade folding prop that came with the boat.  Does a sailboat really go fast anyway?  A castle nut on the prop with a couple of cotter pins and two new zincs on the shaft ...

Ken gave the boat a good washing with Starbrite Boat Wash before calling it a day.  The rain came back afterwards, and then the New Year.  This week has been spent catching up on work and hopefully next week I'll be writing about bringing Nirvana to the marina.  Wish us luck!

Hasta luego ... Mid-Life Cruising!