Ben Romano
Junior Member
I have benefited immensely in my first year of sailboat ownership from the generosity, wisdom and wit displayed on this forum. Thank you all. I'm looking for help with a new problem that threatens to keep us at the dock for some time, I’m afraid.
A couple of weeks ago, we inelegantly left the marina for an evening sail. There was an ominous clunk as I shifted, too aggressively and under duress, from forward to reverse. Somehow we made it out without hitting anyone, but soon discovered that we no longer could change gears from the pedestal. Returning was stressful -- my kids huddled in the V while the engine ran with the cover off so we could access the gear shift lever directly -- but ultimately successful thanks to kind sailors on the dock who grabbed our lines and helped us to a stop without crashing.
A marine mechanic came out last week to help me diagnose what went clunk. It appears we have broken the circular piece at the bottom of the shift leg inside the pedestal, which attaches the shift cable to the control lever with a set screw on the circular piece. (The rest of the gear shift control appears to be fine; the cable was replaced last fall.)
The broken part in question seems hard to find. It appears in the old Merriman/Yacht Specialties catalog that was posted last year and is so helpful for approaching this problem. Thank you to Christian for finding and posting it, and for the threads on disassembling and rebuildingthe YS pedestal – among many other blog and forum posts that have been entertaining and informative. See the screen grab below from the catalog with the part and suspected breakage identified with the red arrow (I say suspected because I've not yet started pulling the pedestal apart far enough to confirm, but the mechanic spotted it from above after we took off the piece covering the control head). The part can also be seen well in Christian’s pedestal disassembly thread, images 4-7. Here is his image 4, which shows it best:
My questions:
A couple of weeks ago, we inelegantly left the marina for an evening sail. There was an ominous clunk as I shifted, too aggressively and under duress, from forward to reverse. Somehow we made it out without hitting anyone, but soon discovered that we no longer could change gears from the pedestal. Returning was stressful -- my kids huddled in the V while the engine ran with the cover off so we could access the gear shift lever directly -- but ultimately successful thanks to kind sailors on the dock who grabbed our lines and helped us to a stop without crashing.
A marine mechanic came out last week to help me diagnose what went clunk. It appears we have broken the circular piece at the bottom of the shift leg inside the pedestal, which attaches the shift cable to the control lever with a set screw on the circular piece. (The rest of the gear shift control appears to be fine; the cable was replaced last fall.)
The broken part in question seems hard to find. It appears in the old Merriman/Yacht Specialties catalog that was posted last year and is so helpful for approaching this problem. Thank you to Christian for finding and posting it, and for the threads on disassembling and rebuildingthe YS pedestal – among many other blog and forum posts that have been entertaining and informative. See the screen grab below from the catalog with the part and suspected breakage identified with the red arrow (I say suspected because I've not yet started pulling the pedestal apart far enough to confirm, but the mechanic spotted it from above after we took off the piece covering the control head). The part can also be seen well in Christian’s pedestal disassembly thread, images 4-7. Here is his image 4, which shows it best:
My questions:
- Does anyone know of a source for this part? (To complicate matters further, the part does not appear to be interchangeable between YS pedestal models. Our pedestal most resembles a Y323-210/11, based on the catalog, but I have not seen a specific part number stamped anywhere on the pedestal itself so I am not sure. Assuming that is correct, the part number would be Y323-0191.)
- Does it seem like something that could be fabricated?
- Are there alternatives you would suggest we pursue to regain gear shift control from the helm?