A (nother) disturbing discovery ...

Raasay has always (in my ownership) kicked to starboard going astern. I didn't realise this was a little bit unusual, and didn't give it any particular thought. It has meant that I generally tie up starboard side to (when I have a choice) and some deck arrangements reflect this.

A particular arrangement that reflects it is that I have set up a 200w solar panel on the port side of the cockpit. It's mounted on a stainless steel tube. (See Solar panel). It can be folded down for tying up, or if it's otherwise an obstruction.

Now, with an engine swap project in hand, I've been looking more closely at the service manual for the Yanmar 3GM30, and the associated Kanzaki gearbox. The engine turns anti-clockwise (looking from astern), so the kick to starboard seemed to make sense.

Except that it didn't. The gearbox reverses the direction of rotation (this might have been obvious to me if I'd had to think about it before), so that the prop turns clockwise when forward gear is engaged.

And anti-clockwise when going astern, which should, of course, make it kick to port...

Now, Raasay has a J-Prop, which can be set up for either right-hand or left-hand operation. It had, of course, been set up left-handed, rotating counterclockwise when the boat is going ahead. Which only works if the gearbox control linkage is reversed so that reverse becomes forward.

I have, as it turns out, been driving around in reverse gear for twelve years. Several hundred hours ...

Reverse gear is also a lower ratio than forward, but that's maybe a detail.

I don't know why this didn't do terrible damage to the gearbox. Although the oil level in it has also been too high for a few seasons, so ...

The person who set this all up is the same person who did the kack-handed prop fit that I had to repair in Stornoway (See A thought-provoking prop failure), and which might have been catastrophic if it hadn't revealed itself under relatively safe circumstances.

At the moment, I'm unutterably depressed about all this. There had actually been one or two red flags around the boat purchase, and maybe I should have paid more attention to them. The seller was a medical consultant, and I sort of imagined that his professional standards would extend to his personal dealings.