Grenada Marine did a great job hauling Blue Star on time and getting the bottom painted quickly. We also got some critical sage advice from Craig, the gentleman who runs the mechanical area.

When we unbolted the motor we discovered that the starboard motor mount bolt on the engine side was sheered off. The following is speculation but our best guess at the issue.

This likely happened a year and a half ago when the engine was originally damaged by a mismatched folding prop installed at the factory. The dealers replaced the motor and then had to pull it and reinstall it due to another problem. We are guessing that this is the window within which the mount was broken. Regardless you can tell that the motor mount was broken a while ago due to the high gloss polish on the bolt.

Enter tropical storm Felix. So Blue Star is docked beam to the wind and swell and with one motor mount missing. This allows the motor to rock port to starboard, which doesn't happen much... unless you're beam to a tropical storm. The gasket around the sail drive was probably weakened by the loose motor over the prior months but the violence of Felix caused the crack to sheer through the gasket. Voila, hole in boat.