Jay on Blue Star fired up his Yanmar engines a couple of weeks ago right after Felix and was alarmed by an alarm. The "water in saildrive diaphragm" light was flashing with the buzzer howling.

When he checked he found that his port gasket around his SD50 saildrive had failed and needed to be replaced. A small pool of water was sitting on a level with the top of the gasket. No damage to the gasket was visible and no one wanted to mess with it until the boat could be hauled.

The only place that can do a beamy cat in this area is Grenada Marine and they were packed when Jay first inquired. Today, two weeks later, was the day they could get him out.

I wanted to give him a hand and learn as much as possible along the way. So I joined him in Saint David's by car. The haul out went fine and the GM folks did a nice job. Once blocked up we set about getting things set for the yard guys to do a coat of paint while we pulled the gasket.

Hah. Not so easy. Jay did most of the work with me spotting and helping out here and there. First we had to remove the prop. Next we had to unbolt the bell housing, then unbolt the engine to slide it forward. Next we had to lift the drive leg/bell housing assembly up and out of the boat to work on it.

It was about a million degrees out and the sun just baked straight down into the engine room. Working under the boat was better but the lovely smell of Micron 66 made me feel fairly polluted all day long.