A sailboat’s main propulsion system is of course based on its sails, but an engine is still necessary for manoeuvring in a port, and as a backup.

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The Hanse 418 comes with a Yanmar 40HP engine as standard and a 2-blade propeller.

In strong wind conditions this seems to me as being too weak to move a 10 ton boat, so I opted for the 57-HP engine with a 3-blade Flexofold folding propeller.

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The folding propeller obviously has less drag so the boat sails a bit faster. It is also much quieter inside, has less wear on the gearbox, and much smaller risk to get fouled by a floating line or plastic bag.

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Nevertheless a folding propeller can still get fouled when it is rotating, and if it gets fouled it can cause a great damage on the sail drive axle relatively to fixed propellers which usually break down before propagating the damage further.

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Line cutters are common on fixed propellers, but expensive and difficult to find for folding propellers. I only found two manufacturers in the UK (none in the EU), and I finally acquired and installed a suitable one from Darglow Engineering UK.