"It was dirty weather that worried the 11 skippers crossing the bay of Biscay with Blue Water Rally's annual 'Triangle' cruise. But it was rubbish filled seas that caused the problems"
This inspired me to reinvestigate the possibility of fitting a rope stripper. I think the recognised market leader in this space is Ambassador. Yachting Monthly also gave them the thumbs up in the same issue. Handily they produced this (somewhat amateurish) video of the tests:
Apparently Ambassador Marine make the only cutter that works with a saildrive. They've got a really dated looking video explaining their offering here:
I called them and ordered one for £470. The man at the end of the phone used language like "yeah.... I think it should be ok with your propellor". This didn't instill me with confidence, so I called Bruntons and asked.
I was told that the prop needs to have mounting holes drilled into the metal and that this was possible with the Autoprop (their premium offering), but the Varifold had some sort of plastic component that meant that it was incompatible. So that was the end of that. There was no problem cancelling the order with Ambassador though.
We then spent the weekend worrying about whether to upgrade to the Autoprop and buy the rope stripper. When Bruntons came back to us we were told that we could return our (unfitted) Varifold and exchange it:
Dear Mr Collins,
Thanks for your enquiry to upgrade, the costs are as follows, this includes taking your 2 blade back into stock.
APS-416mm 3 blade £1317.01
APS –H20-430mm 2 blade Autoprop £788.01
Additional charge for rope cutter modification £145.00 for 2 or 3 blade
regards
Bruntons
So the cost would have been:
| Rope cutter | £470.00 |
| Upgrade prop | £788.01 |
| Modification to accomodate cutter | £145.00 |
| Total | £1403.01 |
The big question is: "Is this worth it?"
I suppose if one of us had to go over the side in cold, big seas with a knife to hack away at a rope, we'd probably pay that much there an then to avoid that unpleasant & potentially deadly task. We had to do this in Bequia on our first charter, except it was, warm, clear water with no swell to speak of and really the only actual risk was the ferry terminal a cable's length away and other boats in the anchorage. I don't want to have to repeat this again in a hurry. Doing it in less tropical climes would be much horrible.
So that means the big question is really: "Is this going to happen to me?"
I'm told that there's less chance of this happening to saildrive boats because the prop is much deeper in the water, but it's certainly not impossible.
It's worth noting that the vast majority of fouled props are self inflicted (as ours was), so it's possible that good boating practice (such as tidying mooring lines away quickly) can dramatically lower the chances of being stricken.
After a weekend of agonising, we decided not to bother as we'd made the decision to choose the prop that we did on the grounds of sailing performance & an autoprop and stripper will add extra drag, plus the pretty significant extra expense.
Fingers crossed.
