To our surprise the propeller was missing !

Knowing from experience that it´s very difficult to locate items lost in the water by diving we promised to give it a try.

Our neighbours knew quite well where they lost propulsion when going into reverse for manouvering into the marina and we went searching in this area. Odd enough it only took us some minutes to locate a broken propeller that had been split in two halves.

Not having any experience or knowledge from the Volvo saildrive to me the construction and material was not impressive.

The propeller (made of aluminium) was very corroded and obviously split in halves when going into reverse in an emergency situation.

I don´t think that would happen to a fixed propeller made of bronze.

Nevertheless our neighbours were happy to find the reason for propulsion failure and planned for a haul out ordering a new propeller.

The backside of this little adventure was a furious master of Marine Sifredi who reminded us that diving was strictly forbidden in port.