Maybe I need to revise my definitions, otherwise with the early morning haul out of Evenstar today we just concluded the shortest summer in recent memory.
This is actually a rather short stay on land while the marina paints the bottom and replaces the cutlass bearing. I bet you don’t remember that last from the “To Do” list do you? Me neither, however I went back and looked at the survey from when we bought her and lo and behold, right there was the “renew cutlass bearing” recommendation. So my job today (hopefully) is to get the prop off so the yard can get their cutlass bearing press over the shaft.
For the not-quite-nautical among my three readers (I flatter myself), the cutlass bearing is a round metal tube that goes around the propeller shaft at the place the propeller shaft enters the boat. When it wears the propeller shaft can start to vibrate. Vibration is bad, as it can lead to fatigue, and fatigue leads to fear and fear leads to suf-fer-ing.
