HELP - 2004 Oceanis 373, propshaft length?

[Captain Ron 373]

Can anybody help with the length of the Beneteau Oceanis 373 propellor shaft length, mine sheared off, Kiwi folding prop also missing. Vetus supply 30mm shaft in either 1 metre or 1,5 metre length. Unable to find technical specs for this boat anywhere. Boat is still in water and plan to replace it in-situ.

Thank you in advance!

SV Shenanigans
Cape Town, South Africa

[Captsteve53]

Have you tried the Benetau owners forum?

Basically you should be able to work out the length from whats left in the vessel and a quick dive to see where it broke and whats left protruding (if any), they normally break off right at the cutlass bearing???

From there it's fairly easy to calculate remembering Per ABYC Standard P-06

6.5.5.4 The distance between the forward end of the propeller hub and the aft end of the last strut bearing shall be limited to one shaft diameter.

That said many stretch this to 1 1/2 times in order for room to fit a zinc collar if the shaft exits direct from the hull with out a P bracket/Strut.

Then you only need to know the length of your desired propeller but usually they all fit a standard taper for the diameter of shaft so that is also known

Cheers Steve

[Captain Ron 373]

Thank you Steve for your inputs, it was used in my calculations as no other information was forthcoming from any of the forums/suppliers that I contacted. I ended up installing a standard Vetus 1,5 metre shaft with minor machining of the engine side in order to fit my specific coupler.

The yacht was taken out of the water and the rudder had to be dropped in order to get the shaft back in. Please note that it was not required to remove the rudder as a whole, as it has a major taper to the top of the stock, dropping it down by approx. 400 mm resulted that I could angle it to the side and get the shaft past it.

All good now and sailing safely along the West Coast of South Africa, Cape Town and Saldanha.

Regards
Ron