A couple of weeks ago I commented that you could grease the plastic gears on a Raymarine (Raytheon, Autohelm) to extend their life.

Today I replaced the old plastic gears on my drive. We are sailing 8-10,000 miles this year and I thought now is the time to replace the plastic one with a new metal one. When I opened up the drive I found a note to myself that I had replaced the gear in August 2002. I was amazed at how long it had been. This drive had been in use at least since Puerto Rico - We are in New Zealand. The plastic gear still looked good.

Greasing the gear with synthetic grease was a huge advantage and there was no deterioration due to the grease. So, now I have another spare gear if the gears in either of the drives fail. I have a second drive set up to plug in quickly if the one in use fails.