Quote:
| Originally Posted by CaptPKilbride Xanax,
I would be curious to hear your reasons for avoiding surface drives? |
Captpkilde,
Surface drives in accordance to personal experiences as well as others that happened to meet in Seas,
First of all I find them dangerous and not reliable for long journeys unless the Sea is calm, since you need the speed otherwise the manoeuvrability of your boat is reduced to minimum.
Secondly in case of an emergency you cannot take sharp turns in high speeds and if you do you may or more like for curtain will face lots of mechanical problems afterwards
Third, in case of a failure in one of your two engines your speed for to reach a save Port will be so slow that depended to the problems you may facing the time would not be sufficient for to find the solutions needed and consequently the problems may become bigger in general speaking, something which I do not wish to happen to none but I happen to “fish” people with surface drives from the Sea because of similar problems! Some others they have been towed.
Fourth in Marinas surface drives are the rubbish collectors like robs plastic-netted bags, bottles, wood you name it anything that flows, where in the case you are extremely unlucky and both drives catch the same rob you had it for good if you know what I’m saying.
Fifth, the same applies for going out of your berth surrounded by neighbouring moorings a bit windy and you always at risk to catch something.
Sixth, if you berth your boat aft facing position then you can not compare the command and response of conventional shaft with surface drives and again there you always risk catching something.
Seventh, maintenance with huge accounts since there is a lot of weariness on the gearboxes due to the surface drives and much more as bigger the set of engines and gearbox the worst case scenario you have, I have gone across some invoices in large size Pershings with Surface drives and they where out of the normal world.
Last they are noisier than the conventional shafts and they spray a lot around where in the case your body is blue or another dark colour body then lots of cleaning especially in the MED where the salinity is very high.
Overall surface drive use is limited in case you considered safety of the boat and people on board only daytime I would avoid night or let me say I would not trust the boat to go out in the night.
My comments stand for MED Sea and the Marinas available in the Southern – eastern territory although would be pretty much the same for other places too, where as for US waters I believe the circumstances will be a bit better but still not safe for the surface drives for some of the above issues in case the occurred.
Kind regards
Xanax