Attached are pictures showing damage to the P-bracket on the Ballad I have recently bought. There are serious cracks around the bracket itself (pics 1 & 2) and it looks as though the propeller shaft has dropped. It looks as though I will have to remove the motor, completely rebuild the P-bracket and remount the motor, possibly with a new propeller shaft. All this will be expensive, so if anyone has any good advice before I start, I would love to hear from you!
. From reading the previous discussion, it sounds like there's a Y-shaped fitting that is not normally bolted to the hull and that this will have to be removed and built-in again. Indeed, she has been in a "hot" marina in the Med with no winter haul-outs and, yes, there's been a recent attempt to reinforce the strut with fibreglass. The state of the paintwork "just" reflects that I'm stripping off the old anti-fouling. No osmosis! 