I DID NOT see that coming....

My partner Fiona will roll her eyes if you asked her how much time I have spent on the boat, going through all of the mechanicals and systems to ensure it's all in good working order.  Today we went for a wonderful sail in Tauranga's protected harbour, and hit speeds of 6.5kts in very calm water.

We set up for docking in our marina slip, the wind was directly on the nose at 16kts, so she needed some forward throttle to get her in...just as I went to shift into reverse and bring her to a perfect stop for Fe to step off and tie her down...the gear selector lever literally came off in my hand.  I stopped the engine immediately (otherwise it would have smashed into the dock), jumped off and we both pulled like crazy to fight the wind pushing her back out.

Epilogue:


There is a shear screw that holds the lever onto the gear shaft, and it is likely 25yrs old...well...it sheared.  I would not in a million years thought the replace this screw, or that it was bearing the full shear load from each shift over all these years.

In any case, I'm nothing if not lucky...had it happened as we were leaving the slip a few hours earlier, we would have likely gone straight into the rocks (I would have had 5 seconds to drop the anchor).

My advice, replace yours right now.

You can see the head of the screw...but where's the rest?  Sheared off in the gear shaft...that's where.