I HAVE RECENTLY PURCHASED A NEGLECTED 1985 MARAMU
WHICH HAS PROBLEMS WITH THE FURLING SYSTEM ON THE
MAIN.

AS NEAR AS I CAN TELL THE PROBLEM STARTED WITH A BOUND
UP BEARING AT THE TOP OF THE FURLER WHICH CAUSED THE
DRIVE SHAFT TO TWIST OFF INSIDE THE MAST JUST WHERE IT
GOES INTO THE BEVEL GEAR. I AM NOT SURE WHERE I SHOULD
GO OR WHOM I SHOULD CONTACT FOR SERVICE INFORMATION
AND PARTS FOR THIS BOAT.

DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE WITH PROBLEMS OF THIS
NATURE AND ANY ADVICE?

THANKS, DENNIS STULLER SVCHEECHAKO@YAHOO.COM




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Hi: I sent a reply already but it didn't show up for some reason.
I will try again.

Amel is able to provide technical support and parts for your boat.
If the parts needed are proprietary to Amel you will need to obtain
them from Amel. If you need contact information go to www.Amel.fr

My boat is currently located in Ft. Lauderdale and Ray Eaton
(Joel's/Amel's defacto service representative for that area) has
been very helpful. You may contact him at 954 583-8762 (voice) or
954 792-8883 (Fax).

Along this line, I recently noticed a very strange and loud grinding
noise coming from my main sail furling mechanism even though the
furling seemed to work ok. Ray Eaton investigated this for me. We
originally thought something had broken in the gearbox but what we
found was that the motor shaft had sheared off. The irregular ends
of the shaft still engaged each other so that the furling worked but
made a lot of noise. I have seen similar failures of motor shafts
on aircraft flap activation systems that are heavily loaded in
torsion. Ray indicated that he had not seen this failure mode
before. Ray obtained a new motor from Amel and after inspecting the
gearbox for damage installed the new motor.

One of the sales pitches that Jean-Jacques showed me at the Amel
factory was the fact that they keep on file all the data about each
boat they manufacture, including the equipment installed, so that
they can reference that information when providing replacement
parts.

My advice is to contact the factory. Unless you are fluent in
French, I have had the best luck faxing them with specific
questions/part numbers/boat serial numbers etc so that less is lost
in the translation. Amel has always been a pleasure to work.

Good luck, Gary Silver Amel SM # 335