Tangled shaft

[ghebbns]

Hi all,
Was bringing Sabbatica to her homeport yesterday (approx 40 nm).  Had a beautiful following wind so was motorsailing at 7 knots.  Engine was only revving around 2K rpm.  All of a sudden the engine started choking.  I quickly cut the throttle and shifted to neutral.  The engine never died on its own.  I turned around and saw styroform chunks in the water - I had hit a submerged lobster trap and these were part of the float.  The line was obviously wrapped around my shaft and I was dragging the trap. 


We were able to snag the line with our boat hook and pull it up to tie to a cleat to relieve the pressure on the shaft - it was very heavy!!   Cut the line to let the trap go but was unable to get the line off the shaft.

Luckily we had a good wind to sail back to our starting point.  Was able to hook onto our buoy under sail.  Even more lucky, my sailing partner is a diver so he was able to go under and remove the line from the shaft.  No sign of any physical damage.  Once clear, I checked the transmission fluid and it was fine.  Did a quick test of the motor and it worked fine in both forward and reverse.  Was able to reach normal max speed at normal max rev.

Is there anything else I need to worry about? Anything else I should check?

Thanks,

Greg

PS Lobster season ended here on May 31 but apparently some fisherman still set traps with the floats submerged so as not to be detected.  Every fisherman has a color-coded float and I have kept this one.  If I find out who it is, they will be getting an ear full!!!

[KWKloeber]

Greg

Not having eyes and hands on is always a limiting factor but with the symptoms (or lack of) I'd conclude there's no problem with the trans. I don't know what prop you have but I'd likely also check my two blade make sure I didn't snap the woodruff key.

-k

[ghebbns]

Thanks for the reply.  I have a two-bladed folding prop.