Sail Drive noise under power

[simon379]

During a sea trial of a SO379 I heard an odd whirring/gear sound from, I think, the sail drive. It occurred in a fairly narrow rpm band, a bit above tick over, say 1200rpm. In all other respects the engine/drive performed well. The skipper put it down to resonance and said they all do this, but I wasn't quite convinced... Would anyone with a sail drive care to comment?

[JEF]

Hi simon379

We have a 2012 SO379 shoal keel twin rudders ... the first season we ran with the std prop and thereafter a feathering Auto prop.
Under power we have not experienced any undue prop / sail drive noise across the full engine rev range on both .... in fact the feathering prop runs very very sweet at 1200 rpm.

Hope this helps ..

[simon379]

Thanks Jim. The surveyors opinion is this is not an ominous noise, so looks like shortly we will be the owners of a SO379!

[MalcolmP]

Jun 1, 2014 16:16:50 GMT simon379 said:

Thanks Jim. The surveyors opinion is this is not an ominous noise, so looks like shortly we will be the owners of a SO379!

Trust the purchase goes through smoothly. They are very good looking and well regarded boats.

[Anwen (Deep Joy)]

I can tell you that all three 379s in Swansea make a noise at certain revs. I think it is prop noise rather than anything mechanical in the sail drive gearbox. My boat has a Kiwiprop and the other two have the standard Yanmar SD20 prop fitted. One of the other owners was very concerned about this, and to cut a long story short ended up with a new sail drive being installed, which promptly made the same noise. One thought is that it may be the thin plastic cover plate that fairs the sail drive into the hull which is resonating. I wouldn't let this put you off the purchase - I think you will be very happy with the boat.

[j24sailor]

We have a 409 with a saildrive and still have the original prop (for now) and we have the same issue. I agree it is a normal prop sound and it lets you know your revs without looking down.