By Ferry To Qijin

I would like to brag in a macho way that we knew it all the time, but the truth is that Mr. Zhang talked us into taking our shaft out. His propeller is perfect, our shaft must be bent. We didn’t know what else to do, so we decided to take the shaft out and have him check it.

We were getting ready for a flood. The boat is in the water, you know. We covered the engine with a piece of canvas, I pulled from behind, Jana pushed from within the boat, but the shaft wouldn’t budge. Perhaps if we used a bit more force, but we didn’t want to try our luck and harm the cutless bearing. We’ve decided to have the prop checked first. We can take the shaft out in the Philippines on the hardstand if we find out that the vibrations were indeed caused by the propeller. In fact, Jana reported that she’s not afraid to take the shaft out anymore, that a lot of water comes when she takes the packing gland down, but that it’s manageable. Am I lucky man or what?

Engine room ready for an operation

I took the propeller to a small prop manufacturing company on the island Qijin. It’s a nice 5 minute ferry ride, you get to see the breakwater and both beacons signaling the entry to the port, which means sighing and dreaming of the distant horizons. I enjoy it every time.

A man in the shop tried to persuade me that our periodic vibrations cannot be caused by a propeller. I fought bravely back claiming that no vibrations are obvious when the engine runs in the neutral. The man nodded and took me into a dimly lit hall full of large propellers, turbo charger blades, bronze dust and empty paint tins. He put our propeller on a vertical bar, balanced it with a conical nut on top of which he installed an adjustable arm with a piece of chalk at the end. He adjusted the arm so that the chalk just touched one of the blades of the prop and turned the prop around. Immediately it was obvious that the blades are off. Both of us smiled. I shook my head in disbelief too.

Jana contemplates the size of things

Mr. Chen, from whom I have in the meantime elicited his name, stood up and told me to come the next day, because the foreman of the shop is not in today. Almost victoriously I jumped on our scooter and headed back to the ferry.

Back home aboard I reported that the patient has been left there for further inspection. We went through a round of curses regarding our procrastination and the lame work of the company that made the prop for us and with expectations we looked towards the next day.

Jana decided to go with me, saying that she wants to see it with her own eyes. We came just in time. They were just checking the balance of the blades. The foreman explained that one of the blades was longer than the other two. All of us shook our heads this time in utter disbelieve. Me and Jana continued to watch a Philippino grinder performing a noisy ballet around our propeller. From time to time he would pick it up and carry it to a nearby bench to check the balance and then back it went to be grinded some more. He was working in a small nook full of goldish bronze shavings.

Balancing bench

The propeller was in the end greased with lanolin which is supposed to prevent marine growth. We’ve heard about this trick recently, but haven’t tried it yet.

We thanked everyone politely and opened our wallet. Mr. Chen, who turned out to be the head of the production, waved us away saying that it was nothing. We politely rustled with our wallet two more times, but Mr. Chen remained oblivious to our offerings, so we went back to install the damn thing.

Our propeller is being tweaked by a grinder

We were watching the cleanliness of the harbor waters from the early morning and this time we got lucky. Last two days the weather was warm and water almost unbelievably clean. Quickly we prepared all the stuff we needed and lines to tie them in case I would drop them. I put on my swim trunks, fins and diving mask and jumped into the cold water. The water was actually quite lovely, but it was too cold for any prolonged soaking. One propeller installation was about enough before I would get cold.

I took down and put back the propeller about five times now, so I had enough opportunity to practice all the necessary movements. Take a breath, pull or push few times and then back up to get another breath. Jana keeps the watch to prevent any kind of nasty harbor gunk to float above my head while I’m down there.

Then, under the watchful eyes of couple dozen Mainland Chinese tourists, I took a shower, gobbled down a cuppa, and we started the engine and motored around the harbor. The vibrations were almost gone. I say almost, because boat engine will probably be always vibrating a little. Anyway, we became rather paranoid about any kind of vibration so just to be sure we will ask an experience mechanic to have a look, listen how it purrs.

That’s it then. Tomorrow we would like to go out to test our new mainsail. But first we have to move around a bit of hardware on our boom and take down the radar reflector which is at the top of our back stay (the highest practical location as per COLREG), because our big roach mainsail would be hitting it when tacking.

Fixed (sic) propeller ready to be installed