I had a situation with a Seawind 1000 that in some ways contradicts
the statement of being crippled in reverse with only one engine.

I was in a rather narrow channel and was waiting to dock. The
best was to do it in this situation was to back to the dock square
on the stern of the boat, step off and tie off the starboard side, then
use the port engine forward to bring the boat around for a side tie
on the starboard side (wind, current, tight quarters were the issues
involved).

During the wait for the other, larger mono to get the f*ck out of
the way, the starboard engine died and wouldn't restart (can't recall
what the problem was right now). I still managed to do the same
maneuver but it took longer and I had to jockey back and forth
a couple of times. Perhaps it's just a matter of taking it easy with
not too much engine.

Of course, forward has never been a problem on several large
cats. In Belize, the port engine was sounding funny one day
when we were in "get there" mode. I just turned it off and raised it
while we kept going.

Jonathan

"Jeff Morris" jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote in message
...
After starting this little brouhaha I think I might have to modify my
claim that my cat
has no prop walk.

Since the props are widely spaced (15 feet with an 18 foot beam) if I ever
tried to back
on one engine the boat would "spin out" immediately. Although the boat is
functional with
one engine in forward, it is rather crippled for maneuvers in reverse.

Therefore, anytime I would be running one engine in close quarters, I
would be also be
running the other, and likely balancing so that it would back true, or
adjusting to turn
as desired. The only way I could tell that I had no prop walk would be to
carefully
measure the RPMs, and this is beyond my instrumentation.

Thus, the net affect is zero propwalk, but I have no way to determine
whether the
individual engines are generating propwalk.

BTW, the builder claimed this was a non-issue, but when they started
building larger
sailing cats, and the powercat, they used counter-rotating props, because
it was an option
with the larger transmissions.


"Jeff Morris" jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom wrote in message
...
My props are Left-Hand, two blade folding. There is virtually no
propwalk. I'm quite
familiar with the phenomenon because my old Nonsuch would walk hard to
port, as would
all
the single screw boats I've driven.

I was under the impression that a major contributor to prop walk was the
angle of the
shaft; thus, if its horizontal, the affect is greatly reduced. If this
isn't the case,
what does cause it?

-jeff



"Shen44" wrote in message
...
Subject: Inherently beautiful.
From: "Jeff Morris" jeffmo@NoSpam-sv-lokiDOTcom
Date: 10/22/2003 13:00 Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Neal really doesn't understand, even though I explained it fully.
He'll
figure it out and
come up with a creative way to cover his ignorance!

BTW, I get virtually no prop walk - is that because the shaft is
horizontal,
the blades
are flat, the keel is long, or a combination of all three?


None of the three SHOULD eliminate "prop walk", singly or in
combination ....
G you don't have Kort nozzles, do you?
To be sure I'm thinking correctly, both your props are right hand,
folding? (I
have no experience with folding, so I don't know if this may be a
factor).

When backing, your boat, should want to back to port, as Neal said,
once you
lose steerageway .... does it? (assuming two right hand props ... I
can't
remember if you said right or left).

Shen