Saildrive and other problems

As you know by now…. I am the guy that always runs into issues with my Hanse 505.

• Replacement of part of the flexiteek deck because of use of regular steel in stead of inox…. warranty

• Autopilot failure (3 times and 3 costly repairs)….. expensive

• New stays after 3 years of use….. expensive

• 3 new B&G devices because of water inside the units…. expensive

• Sail-drive issues with the oil drain plug… new lower shaft… expensive

• All Lewmar deckhatches had to be replaced because of excessive corrosion…. expensive

• Etc.

ALL of the above is the DIRECT result of work at the Hanse factory (I investigated every issue in detail and this is the conclusion: Hanse did not do a good job during the assembly of the yacht). And yes… most of that work is done by sub-contractors and not Hanse themselves… but still.. Hanse has the ultimate responsibility to deliver a quality product.

Lots of these issues only show up after the warranty period has ended. And lots of these issues are the result of lack of expertise during assembly or wrong decisions in the engineering phase.

But this last one is the straw that broke the camel’s back:

Since the first day we bought the boat I had some discoloration of the sail-drive oil. It looked a little like aluminum paint when you changed it. In 2018 (1.5 years old, 1500NM) we hauled the boat out in Athens and had a Volvo Penta mechanic look at it… his opinion: Water in the oil….just change the oil and water seals on the lower shaft and all will be fine…So we had them changed that same day.

After about 1 day of use the first signs of aluminum in the oil were back. With no other options… we decided to continue our trip to Curacao. There we took apart the lower end and discovered that somebody had tried to remove the lower shaft without first removing the drain plug… resulting in a broken magnet traveling through the lower end and damaging the gear. We replaced the lower shaft and the damaged gear and put in a new drain plug thinking this was the end of our problems.

Whose fault was this? It must have happened during assembly in Greifswald by the Volvo mechanic there. It was already missing in Athens, and the Volvo machanic did not notice…..So.. production error of Hanse

(I understand Hanse buys many VP engines/sail-drives at once and therefore some of them will sit in storage quite some time, thereby creating the need to replace the seals before installation….hence the need to open the lower drive part in the Hanse factory)

We sailed a total of 12.000 more NM with that ‘repaired’ sail-drive and changed the oil 2 times per year…… and still we ended up with a bucket full of ‘aluminum’ paint each time, but the drive continued to work properly.

This year finally the drive started to show signs of failure (slow engage when switching from forward to reverse….) so we asked a mechanic here to take the whole sail-drive out and put in new clutches, bearings and shims.

When opening the drive he found 4 loose bolts ‘traveling’ through the upper unit and they all had found a little place where they could ‘eat’ the aluminum housing bit by bit. The four bolts were part of a family of 8 bolts that secure the main gear on the vertical shaft. It is a total wonder we sailed this long without any catastrophic damage. Who did this? Don’t know…. But must have been a mistake during assembly of the sail-drive (no locktite) at the Volvo Penta factory. This was a very expensive repair and finally urged me to write this post.

My Hanse 505 is like a beautiful woman, she looks great, she sails great…. As for everything else: It’s a total disaster.

If anybody is interested I can post pictures of this sail-drive drama or any other drama you may be interested in. (some of them are already documented in other parts of this forum…)

This really sucks and makes me worry.  I have a 505 and have not had these problems but seems like something I am going to have to worry about in the future.  I will check my windows when I get to the boat this season.  My saildrive has been ok but I will ask the yard about it.  Are you supposed to change the oil on the lower unit each season?

Agree ultimately it’s Hanse’s responsibility but most, if not all, the issues raised here are related to 3rd party parts rather than structural / hull / build issues etc. For instance I note Hallberg Rassy used to fit the same Lewmar white powder coated frames, which are now notoriously known to fail (mine at about 3 years). Interesting HR have reverted to anodised (like I have on my 418, with a similarly large discount on replacement parts offered from Lewmar. I wonder if Hanse are still using them? B&G seem to have the new boat market sewn up so I’m sure Hanse aren’t the only brand with these issues, in fact the B&G FB forum is awash with complaints, particularly on radar products and wind instruments 

BTW Kipwrite, I see that your rank on this website is commadore. I paid extra attention to correct placement of my commas!