Be happy you have an honest Marine Guy - he could have banged you. How old is it? How long has it been since it was tightened? If you have the threaded waxed stuff like I did, it will keep on leaking a little while after each tightening.

If you can use Gore Tex stuffing material do it. I switched it out about four years ago and it is great. You just have to be pretty exect about the dimensions in the stuffing box. No drip at all and it stays cool. SPIRIT is on the hard this year so I will probably have to tighten the box after she has been in the water a bit. Highly recommend Gore Tex 95% worry free.

Good Luck
Tom Bolen
SPIRIT
1999 36 MKII #1780

Have you "done" the box yourself?

If not: [url]http://www.c34.org/wiki/index.php?title=Stuffing_box[/url] Please read the link to Maine Sail's article, too.

Also: [url]http://c34.org/bbs/index.php/topic,6132.0.html[/url]

There is alot of confusion about stuffing box materials. The Gore product that works is called Gore GFO. I have only found it on-line. There is another product that has the Gore name that is a blue putty like material that doesn't work very well. In the link Stu provided, Mainesail suggests a different dripless material, cheaper than the GFO, that is supposed to work just as well.

John, 5 years? Yikes! To avoid scoring your shaft, why not just do it, right away? As noted in the links, you CAN do it in the water without sinking your boat! :)

Yeah, you can do it in the water but I'd think twice about that, particularly if you've never done it before and it has never been replaced on the boat.

I did mine on the hard, it was the first time being replaced on the boat, and it took a few trips down to the boat before I got it all out (admitedly I get frustrated after a while and took a few days just to not get so aggrevated) BUT, that was with no water coming in.

If you open it and start pulling the flax, water will come in. Assuming it all comes out easily, which isn't a given, while the water is flowing (maybe that's an exageration but it will seem like a flow under the circumstances) you will them have to figure out how to align the new stuffing and get it into the box.

Don't know what tools you are thinking of using, there are a lot of posts on this, but the corkscrew device they sell for this purpose does not work as easily as they suggest so don't think you are just going to screw it in and pull out all the old stuffing.

If you can tighten it for now, IMHO, I'd suggest waiting until the next haulout and doing it on the hard.

Good luck with it!

I replaced the stuffing in my C36 while it was in the water. I'd never done it before nor seen it done. I had a particularly tough time because the old stuffing refused to come out. I ended up sliding the nut far enough up the shaft that it didn't matter that I scored it a little bit and used a drill to drill it out. The whole process took me at least an hour. Meanwhile, the water was flowing in. However, after awhile I realized that the sump pump was going to be able to keep up with it so it wasn't a problem.

There really isn't that much water pressure. Once the packing nut is off, slide it forward and wrap a rag around the shaft and tie tight. Slide it back against the shaft log and it stops 90% of the incoming water.

Dental picks and drywall screws seem to work best for removing the old packing. You can precut the three wraps of the new packing before removal of the packing nut to save time.

It seems a daunting task, but it really isn't.

I concur with Ken. One other suggestion: have fresh water in the front tank only. this helps reduce water ingress. The gore packing is sensational. Before I used it, I was contemplating putting in a mechanical seal, because my old teflon packing was leaking so badly, but I am really glad I saved my money. Virtually dripless and runs cool (after careful initial adjustments).

Make sure your batteries are charged, in case old packing removal takes longer than necessary. This will save you panicking that your bilge pump will flatten them.

A bilge pump consumes 5 to 10 amps. Even if it took an hour to do the stuffing box (that would be for first-timers), that's 10 AH at most. Most of our boats have at least two Grp 27 batteries, good for a couple of hundred AH. Unless the batteries are dead flat, battery power to power a bilge pump during this work should not be an issue. Plus, most are doing it dockside, and most folks plug in all the time...:)

Speaking of 'flat batteries,' what IS the proper inflation? 30 psi? 40 psi? :p

Our C36 is in the water all year round and for those extended periods when we did not expect to be away from the slip I would normally tighten the gland nut sufficiently to stop any leaks and when we started to use the boat more frequently then I would back the nut off until normal drip pattern was re-established. Saves the worry of how much water is leaking into the boat through the shaft seal particulalrly if you are a fair distance from the boat.
We changed from the old stuffing box style to a mechanical seal this year; best move ever as the shaft seal is now totally dripless. Google "Kiwi Shaft Seal"; guaranteed for 2 years or 1000hours, fully servicable, and eliminates danger of shaft scoring etc....Only downside is the boat must be out of the water to install.

I have had nothing but problems with the stuffing box on my boat from the day I took possession. I can't count the number times I removed panel over the prop shaft and readjusted the stuffing box to get the right amount of drips. Even though I got the drip/numbers right the packing would continue to drip after the engine was stopped. I'd come back to the boat a day or so later and find my bilge filled with sea water that came from the constant drip and the resulting broth that was growing. I even replaced the packing to see it that would work. I found the old style packing would stop dripping when the engine was stopped for a week or so and then go right back to the constant drip and a wet bilge.

After reading the above articles I decided to give the Gore GFO a try. I ordered the packing which arrived a few days later. A few days after that I took it to the boat and completed the installation. Per the instructions I took the boat out for a couple of hours. The packing had a slight leak and per the instructions I snugged the nut just a bit more until the leaking stopped.
The packing has been in the boat for a little over two weeks without a drip.
The bilge is dry and in turn the wet bilge odor is only a fraction of what it used to be.

The complete installation, including the removal of the old packing, took about ten to fifteen minutes. The amount of water that comes in while the stuffing box is open barely filled my bilge. I think the only problem I ran into was getting that last, third, packing that was way back in the nut. A small screw driver helped dig it out. Having the new packing cut and ready also makes the install quicker.

Thanks for the great info...

Chris

When I replaced my stuffing, the corkscrew device promptly broke, but I had anticipated the breakage and had a large fish hook straightened out and clamped in a pair of vise grips. I got the 20 year old, very hard, packing out in less than 30sec.