Entheos, the yacht sailing with us and moored opposite ours in Terminal Nautico da Bahia, have a problem with their port Nanni engine and saildrive (similar to a gearbox). The 8 bolts holding the engine and saildrive together came undone by itself, then got sheared off by the flywheel and with nothing holding the engine and saildarive together - the entire saildrive was loose and moved about when motoring. The sheared off pieces rattled about in the saildrive bell housing causing a huge rachet and further damage to the rubber seals, pressure and adaptor plates. These bolts should never come undone by themselves - it is like the bolts holding your car gearbox and engine together coming undone by itself.
It is a real shame that neither Nanni (the engine manufacturer), nor the distributor in Cape Town who assembled and installed everything are taking any responsibility for any of this. All sorts of excuses, very little in terms of answers and typical "duck and dive" moves from both the engine manufacturer and distributor. Neither are there any support in terms of answers to pertinent technical questions.
It was not a simple task of replacing the sheared off bolts with new bolts! The engine had to be taken out, the other half of the sheared off bolts, still stuck in the saildrive, had to be drilled out. With limited and confined working space, high heat and humidity, without the required tools and plant - it was a huge task drilling out these stuck pieces of bolts remaining in the saildrive. This took days of frustration, blood, sweat and tears to remove these bolts. Once removed, it become apparent that the distributor never applied "loctite" to any of these bolts! Despite photos clearly showing no Loctite residue, the distributor in Cape Town is simply evading the issue and clouding the entire matter with irrelevant and non sensical questions and statements.
As a result of all this saildrive movement, oil seals got damaged in the process and now there is water in the saildrive oil. This means that the salidrive must be taken out and to do this, the boat must come out of the water - another formidable and damn expensive problem here in Salvador. To do this, the boat must be relocated to another marina as there is no space here or boatyard at Terminal Nautico. Then a mobile crane with at least 20 ton capacity and adequate slings must be found and hired. Once on solid ground and properly supported, then only can the saildrive be taken out and checked for damaged after which it can be repaired. The costs and risks are high, it is no joke and quite nerve wracking to see one's boat hanging on a crane cable in mid air whilst lifting it out of the water onto solid ground. As usual, all of this will be entirely at the yacht owner's risk.
During the past 2 weeks, whilst seeking answers and solutions, talking to people in the local industry, the greedy and the sharks have gathered. One local guy who does a variety of repairs on yachts in this area wants over ZAR8000 just to remove the engine - that does not include putting it back or anything else. "I want $R2000 (Brazilian Reals which is over ZAR8000) and I will take out the engine and take it to my workshop". Then he does not quite seem to understand what the actual problem is - the problem is not with the engine, the problem is with the saildrive.
In view of all these unknowns, inadequate industry, risks and hyper prices, we are considering beaching the catamaran on a local sandbank at high tide. When the water level recedes, for us to then take out the saildrive ourselves, plug and seal the about 300 mm diameter hole in the yacht through which it protrudes - all before the tide returns.