Mercury prop blade flies off while on plane

sandydlc said:
I had heard the same thing but wasn’t able to find the reference online (I heard through a friend of mine). Do you have a link to that message thread by any chance? This is the main reason that I’m even bothering to pursue anything with Mercury. There is a known issue with this year/series of props and they should stand behind their product. Thank you!
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It's a closed Facebook group so, you have to be a member to see the posts. I'll see if I can copy the thread.

Edit: here they are.

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So sorry this happened Sandy on what surely was a great trip otherwise. I wish you the best of luck with Merc. On the bright side having spent some time in Gorge Harbour last month as well, I suppose there are worse places to be stuck for 7 days. :)
 
M Prod said:
So sorry this happened Sandy on what surely was a great trip otherwise. I wish you the best of luck with Merc. On the bright side having spent some time in Gorge Harbour last month as well, I suppose there are worse places to be stuck for 7 days. :)
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That’s what my husband and I kept telling ourselves! We were in Gorge Harbour for 4 days and then in Lund for another 3. It all turned out okay but we missed out on finishing the itinerary that we had planned with our good friends which was very frustrating and disappointing considering the time and effort we all put into planning a really fun trip.

But, as always, we made the best of our situation and we had a really nice anniversary dinner (the day we lost the prop) and had a relaxing time the remainder of the time we were in Canada. We met some very nice people and had some great meals both on our boat and in restaurants at the marinas we visited. It’s kind of difficult to compain about that!
 
You guys always seem to be able to make lemonade out of lemons. I applaude your continually positive attitude about a boat you must be afraid to leave home in by now. If a 60DA is too big, consider any of the following which were all available with conventional v-drives/inboards and are all very easy to handle: 48/50DA, 52/54DA, 55/58/DA.
 
fwebster said:
You guys always seem to be able to make lemonade out of lemons. I applaude your continually positive attitude about a boat you must be afraid to leave home in by now. If a 60DA is too big, consider any of the following which were all available with conventional v-drives/inboards and are all very easy to handle: 48/50DA, 52/54DA, 55/58/DA.
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I know that you didn’t want to go older than what you have now, but a friend got a 2006 or so 480 Sundancer this season and it’s a fantastic boat that would be a nice size upgrade to what you have now and give you V drives which would probably be less troublesome and maintenance than what you have.
He previously had a 2005 420 which was basically the same size as my 410 and probably your current boat. Going to the 480 was a really nice upgrade for him. Not sure when they stopped making that model and what they called the final model (480 or 500) but might be worth looking at them.
 
For a classic owner like me, just how much money is this type of prop cost new?

Also not to start anything here but wouldn't it be good bissness to make the owners of this prop happy if one of theirs failed?

Frank, or anyone. What is the issue with these pods?
 
Silly little things break/leak/fail with a frequency so high that it makes you wonder just how much pre-release testing was done before the product was released for sale.

There have also been some serious and major critical parts failures.

All the running gear is under water, under the boat so after the warranty expires, nearly every drive repair requires a haul out......cost runs about $10/ft. On a 50’ boat, changing drive zincs is then $500 + the cost of zincs and 2 hours labor. By comparison a v-drive boat has no zincs on the running gear.
 
fwebster said:
....By comparison a v-drive boat has no zincs on the running gear.
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Unless you count those of us with sacrificial anodes on our shafts to prevent this from happening to our props:

3B019CD1-FD80-4AE9-8B64-521D512A6934.jpeg


And of course while not technically running gear, many of us have anodes on our bow/stern thrusters, hydraulic platform gear, and trim tabs.
 
dwna1a said:
For a classic owner like me, just how much money is this type of prop cost new?

Also not to start anything here but wouldn't it be good bissness to make the owners of this prop happy if one of theirs failed?

Frank, or anyone. What is the issue with these pods?
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They cost $1996 new for each prop (the Zeus have dual, counter-rotating props so you need a matched set).
 
fwebster said:
Silly little things break/leak/fail with a frequency so high that it makes you wonder just how much pre-release testing was done before the product was released for sale.

There have also been some serious and major critical parts failures.

All the running gear is under water, under the boat so after the warranty expires, nearly every drive repair requires a haul out......cost runs about $10/ft. On a 50’ boat, changing drive zincs is then $500 + the cost of zincs and 2 hours labor. By comparison a v-drive boat has no zincs on the running gear.
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I would like to clarify that changing anodes (zincs) is possible to do while underwater. We recently had ours changed out by our diver so that is one maintenance item that can be done more traditionally. Everything else as Frank mentioned requires a haul-out and should only need to happen once per year but that's not been our experience.
 
fwebster said:
You guys always seem to be able to make lemonade out of lemons. I applaude your continually positive attitude about a boat you must be afraid to leave home in by now. If a 60DA is too big, consider any of the following which were all available with conventional v-drives/inboards and are all very easy to handle: 48/50DA, 52/54DA, 55/58/DA.
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Well the way I look at it staying positive just helps me cope with things that I don't have much control over. We were in Newport Beach this weekend and my husband and I had the opportunity to take a look at several boats while we were there and we also discussed the moorage situation in Seattle. We've decided that we hate to allow available moorage to dictate the size of our next boat so we're going to do our best to be patient with our current boat, keep up with scheduled maintenance and wait until we get to the top of the waiting list for a larger slip at our marina. In the worst case we're looking at 3 more years but if it means finding the right boat for us that we'll be happy with in the long term then I think the wait is worth it. I just hope that Portofino doesn't have any more surprises in store for us! Thanks for the suggestions on other Sea Ray models to check out. I'll add them to my list!
 
I don’t know much, if anything at all, about pods.
But I was speaking to a marine mechanic with many decades of experience. Although I do 90% or more of the repairs and maintenance on my boat he is the guy that does what I either can’t or don’t want to do.
I asked his opinion about pods and his answer was to stay away from them.
I really respect his opinion.
 
JVM225 said:
I don’t know much, if anything at all, about pods.
But I was speaking to a marine mechanic with many decades of experience. Although I do 90% or more of the repairs and maintenance on my boat he is the guy that does what I either can’t or don’t want to do.
I asked his opinion about pods and his answer was to stay away from them.
I really respect his opinion.
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Pods have been around for years. Many ocean going ships use them so the concept is proven and well tested. Volvo Penta pods have been installed on Tiaras for years as well. There were some hiccups initially but reliability is reportedly good. The Volvo pods are pretty robust but I still have trouble getting my mind around buying a boat with what looks like modern day I/Os. I have driven boats with pods and they are really very nice handling. Again, these were Volvo powered so I have no experience with Merc. The knock on Volvo that I have heard is their parts are expensive and you have to wait to get them. Don't know if this is fair. The simplicity of straight inboards is my choice.
 
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sbw1 said:
Pods have been around for years. Many ocean going ships use them so the concept is proven and well tested. Volvo Penta pods have been installed on Tiaras for years as well. There were some hiccups initially but reliability is reportedly good. The Volvo pods are pretty robust but I still have trouble getting my mind around buying a boat with what looks like modern day I/Os. I have driven boats with pods and they are really very nice handling. Again, these were Volvo powered so I have no experience with Merc. The knock on Volvo that I have heard is their parts are expensive and you have to wait to get them. Don't know if this is fair. The simplicity of straight inboards is my choice.
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I've heard that overall Volvo pods are more reliable than Mercury Zeus and it's fair to say that the availability of parts for (presumably) both brands of pods is going to be limited to the manufacturer or the dealer unlike traditional drives where you can get marine parts nearly anywhere. Mechanics who are authorized to work on pod drives are also in high demand and are very limited. I love our pod mechanic but if you're in an emergency and need parts and need to schedule time with a pod mechanic don't expect to be on your way in a day or two.

Most of these issues can be mitigated by staying on top of regularly scheduled maintenance. If you're on top of your maintenance it's going to be a lot more unlikely to have an emergent repair come up. Our first 3 hydraulic failures were due to the previous owner's lack of taking care of scheduled maintenance and ignoring service bulletins as well. Since the beginning of last year we've had much more reliability with our pods. The prop issue in my opinion is separate from the pods as I'm sure these props are used on other types of drives as well as on Zeus pods.

Will we buy another boat with pod drives again? Possibly. We would lean more towards Volvo pods but for the right boat we might consider Mercury again. Our boat handles amazingly well and it's highly maneuverable. It's difficult to give that up and go back to traditional drive systems. Bow and stern thrusters have their own issues so in the end, you have to decide which is the most appropriate choice for your type of cruising and you have to be committed to being a good boat owner and do the maintenance. It's the only way.
 
juggernaut1 said:
The Volvo self docking technology also looks interesting too:

https://www.volvopenta.com/marinele...pioneering-self-docking-yacht-technology.html
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It does look interesting. I would think this would be great when visiting a different dock that is unfamiliar, but it seems like system is designed for your home dock only. It requires installation of sensor units on the dock itself. I bet this technology would help captains of larger boats dock single handed much more easily though.
 
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