And What About the Prop?

Several folks have emailed to get an update on the prop. So here goes:

When I arrived on Thursday, I was all ready to be hauled out, since the prop was supposed to be delivered by FedEx that same day. The haul-out was scheduled—all we needed was the part.

End of day Thursday: no prop. The FedEx tracker said it was in Antigua, but no one could locate it. In fact, I was told that our customs broker went to the FedEx customs house to pick up the prop but, even though the tracker records said it was there and available, it wasn’t. I spent the night on the boat at the boatyard (which has far fewer services like, uh, water and toilets, than a marina).

Friday, late morning: Still no prop available. Still looking. It’s not looking good, because it gets dark around 4pm, so the Travel Lift guys wouldn’t be able to do anything unless it showed up by, say, 2pm.

Friday, early afternoon: Good news! The Travel Lift guys will work on Saturday (if the prop shows up).

Friday, late afternoon: Bad news! Still no prop. Worse, it hasn’t been presented to Customs yet. And, when the Customs officers leave on a Friday, they’re gone for the weekend. And even worse, Monday’s a holiday in Antigua. So if the prop doesn’t clear Customs by close of business Friday, it won’t clear until Tuesday. Then the Travel Lift needs to be rescheduled… And worse-worse, my flight from Antigua to the US was scheduled for Saturday.

Friday, 5:06pm: (Yes, that’s right after every business—practically—closes for the three-day Antiguan weekend.) The FedEx tracker finally acknowledges that there’ve been delivery issues (“delivery exception”). It’s not clear from the tracker information which side of Customs the package is on. Whatever. What is clear is the prop isn’t getting delivered and installed before Tuesday.

Saturday morning: Having given up on being present when Resolute is hauled to install the prop (sometime next week), we moved the boat from the boatyard to the marina (another hip tow) for the long weekend. I dove on the bottom to take a close look at the prop shaft to see if there was any damage or whether the prop was simply missing.

Short story: no damage to the shaft. Everything is as clean as if the prop had been removed by a mechanic. So the end-of-shaft nut must have loosened and unscrewed itself, then the lock washer must have fallen off, then the large bolt actually holding the prop on the shaft must have unscrewed itself and fallen off, then the prop itself fell off. Easy (but expensive) to fix.

While I would have wanted to be present to see Resolute hauled; I’ve returned to Maine and ask the guys looking after the boat to have it done next week. That way, if we identify any other issues or missing parts we have plenty of time to deal with them.