Whilst driving ourselves between mooring points on the Cleddau River in Pembrokeshire, the prop shaft had started making a lot of noise and having had a closer look, the stuffing box and associated stern gland gear was moving around rather alarmingly. Chief concern was that too much vibration could crack the fibreglass around the stern gland, which we assumed could lead to rather a lot of water coming into the bilge, rather quickly. Over a couple of weeks, the vibration worsened, until the bearing on the propeller shaft completely came apart.

With the bearing gone, we really didn’t want to motor very far and yet, we knew that none of the Milford Haven marinas had space for us and none of the local yacht repair yards had a hoist capable of lifting us out. This uncomfortable conundrum was solved by asking (well, begging really) a commercial yard in Pembroke Dock to help us. They don’t normally work with yachts and have no real space to store yachts out of the water, but given our predicament, they thankfully agreed that they would lift us in their hoist and allow us to stay in the hoist for a couple of days. Kids were over the moon as we had to spend a couple of days in a hotel with access to decent wifi.

The part that had failed is a pillow block bearing and stabilises the prop shaft before it exits the boat. We found a new one for a very reasonable £30. Unfortunately to get the old one out and new one fitted required the prop shaft to be removed, something which can only realistically be done with the boat out of the water. We asked the team at Mainstay Marine if they could also do the repair, which they agreed to. We would inevitably had to go to them anyway as the old bearing jammed whilst they were removing it and had to be cut off with a cordless angle grinder. I won’t mention how much the lift and work was combined, though suffice to say that even with Mainstay Marine doing us a very good deal, it was somewhat more than £30…

Having splashed back into the water, we took advantage of a break in the weather and high tailed it North to Fleetwood marina near Blackpool. Here we’ll stay for a few weeks at least whilst we take care of a few more essential jobs, though thankfully none which need us to come out of the water again!