Reply To: saildrive

Hi Sassy,

MarkJ's comment about saildrives is spot on. I fitted a long Sillette Cat-drive to Grey Dove and it worked very well although with the same draw-backs as an outboard, ie a hole in the pod!
My mistake was that I was fixated on having a steerable liftable leg, thereby requiring a big hole. This was a complete waste of time and made the boat vulnerable. If I were to do it again I would fix the leg in position, say with a rubber gasket around where it penetrated the pod, and fit it with a folding prop. That would work nicely. The leg itself is relatively slender and the longshaft leg puts the prop really deep so lots of shove from a Yanmar 2GM 20 even in a seaway.

I have since bitten the bullet and converted to hydraulic driven shafts in each hull so if you want to buy a breathtakingly cheap used but sound cat drive it is sitting on a pallet in my garage….make me an offer!