I met with Bali Hai in Malta some years ago. She was a SM owned by John Hollemby, who used to be an active member of this group. The last I heard from John was that the yacht was up for sale, and as t

Michael, I had a fuel starvation problem with my Yanmar, but it was in starting, not whilst it was running, though I seldom use the engine other than for leaving and arriving at the dock. It was due t

Ian, just one question. As the stopper hole has no shoulder on it, how do you stop the plug from going too far in and disrupting the ball track? Ian SM2K 414 Crusader Cyprus

Bill, you must have a different design to my swivel. There are no circlips on SM 414. The balls I got from Amel no problem, but not the plugs. OK on the lube side. I did not intend to use any. All of

Have stripped my forestay swivel I found that both my ball stopper plugs were missing. Without these plugs the plastic balls will get a hammering as they pass the insertion hole. Amel tell me that the

Thanks to all for the warnings against using WD40 (a great British invention by the way)! My method of freeing the jammed swivel worked very well. Having clamped the carbon fibre insert tightly to the

Ian, thanks for the advice. You have given me the courage to remove the fore-stay now. Just one major snag at the moment. After removing the locking tongue to see if I could get a local shop to copy i

Dany was spot on when he suggested that the reason my ballooner would not lock into the swivel was because the locking tongue in the inner part of the swivel had worn away allowing the mouse trap to r

Hi Annsofie, I have at last been able to drop my swivel and find out why the ballooner refused to lock in the up position. Danny was spot on in suggesting that the tongue of the locking piece had worn

Hi Alin, The Onan part number is 0309-0295-01 Switch - Temperature. I got a spare from my local Onan dealer. Your problem is not unheard of. Good luck. Ian shepherd SM2K 414 Crusader Marmaris Turkey

Thanks Danny, I could not get it down this morning to look but will do so at the first opportunity. Regards Ian Crusader

Hello Peter, I am really sorry to hear your bad luck story. I am a great believer in doing as much as I can on the boat myself. Most things are easy to get at and not so technically challenging. There

I am fishing for a gut feeling on this one . Whilst in Marmaris Turkey I had a company called Marlin Yachting come and have a look at my Yanmar engine which was becoming increasingly difficult to star

Thanks to Bill K, Danny and Alexandre for your replies. Until I am able to get the swivel down I can't really say which advice applies. Maybe there will be no wind tomorrow and I will be able to drop

The last few times I have used my ballooner it has failed to lock into the swivel. The halyard run looks normal and I have tried various rotational positions other than the recommended one of the slot

Jose, I had a similar problem some years back. The compressor ran but the fan didn't. The advice I got was that it was a problem within the controller (assuming you have applied 24V to the fan and che

Yes Alan you are right. I always use Loctite on every nut on the boat, preferring 270 on the critical ones. Even if the nuts don't come loose, the bolts will stretch over time. I use the engine very l

Hi Eric, thanks for the tip. My worry about your method is that the heads of the bolts will be compressing the threaded clamp on the face of the C-Drive and maybe might even crack it? It seems risky t

Hi Hajo, as you are a stones throw away, did you have a problem too the other afternoon? Come over sometime. Ian B16

Bill, yes of course it was modified by Amel.I had to wait a day for a new batch of couplings to come back from their sub-contractor who does the machining. According to Maud all Vetus couplings are mo