This coming week Moonshine is booked in to our yard for her annual lift out. Usual jobs to do will be fresh anti foul, outdrive maintenance, new anodes, a good flush through of the raw water cooling system and the repair of the all important bow thruster.
Earlier on last week we contacted Sleipner Motor UK to see if they could assist in obtaining parts for us. They advised that they do not have any spares for our Volvo Penta QL CT600 thruster but they had emailed a Norweigan firm on our behalf and would reply the following day. Unfortunately we are still yet to receive a reply.
However in the meantime we had found that Marineparts Europe in Sweden held a good selection of spares. Bearing in mind our thruster is now obsolete and that frustratingly Volvo Penta only have to support spares for a period of 10 years, and also bearing in mind we do not know exactly what is wrong with the thruster until we are lifted out, it was a bit of a gamble as to do we or don't we order a new propeller and shear pin kit.
Upon contacting Marineparts Europe it transpired that they only had 4 propeller kits in stock, and this probably meant these could well be the very last 4 that they could ever supply which would most certainly mean anyone else requiring a new propeller could well be in a bit of a pickle once their stock had been depleted. With this in mind we took the plunge and ordered 2 sets of propeller kits and along with Fed Ex economy delivery when the euros were converted via PayPal to pounds sterling cost us just under £125. This may well be overkill cost wise, but it's significantly cheaper than replacing the full unit with a more up to date model, which would also come with an added complication regarding the size of our existing tunnel.
We figured that if the existing propeller is still attached then it could be in perfect working order, or the plastic could well be fatigued with blades missing but until Monday we just won't know.
Whilst tracking the progress of our package from ordering on Monday from Sweden and hoping it would arrive on time, it was eventually in our hands early Friday morning.
We will just have to cross everything and hope our lift out brings no added unwanted surprises!
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