The Drivetrain

I love summer. In the summer, I get to drive awesome boats, tow people back home, scuba dive, and do some story-telling salvage work. But as the season winds down, I make a list and schedule my work so I can have the Safe/Sea boats back in bristol shape by spring.

Every year, I paint five boat bottoms, replace the raw water impellers, pull all the jets apart to inspect, lube, and install new zincs. That's a total of nine drivetrains that get an up-close, detailed inspection and repaint.

I pull out all our pumps, salvage equipment, dive gear, and inspect it all for corrosion, damage, missing parts, and so on. There is always something that needs a little attention. On a recreational boat, if something doesn't work quite right it's an inconvenience (and usually ends up with one of our guys showing up to help out). If something on a Safe/Sea boat fails, it could mean disaster.

Aside from the usual paint, spit and polish we also had a couple of noisy jets by seasons end so the driveshafts came out and they received a new set of bearings. In addition, I replaced four cutlass bearings as well that were delaminating from their bronze sheaths, which are shown in the pictures at right.

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Six boats and nine drivetrains. Salt spray, constant vibration, wear and tear; they all add up to job security for me.

My boss has had his run-ins with Murphy and his Law over the years. He knows that if you don't pay attention to the details on the maintenance front, you will have run-ins with him more often. So, I have a healthy budget for Keeping Mr. Murphy at bay, a.k.a preventive maintenance. Safe/Sea members have come to expect a prompt and reliable response when things don't go right for them on the water and it's my job to make sure our boats are ready to answer the bell.

I see all sorts of preventive failures (and a few unpredictable ones) out there. In this blog, I'll show you how we try to fend off Murphy. I'll try to share with you many of the products and procedures we have found over the years in our efforts to keep our equipment running at peak efficiency.

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