2600hrs on them and they get their oil and zincs changed every 2-3 years, and new shaft seals every 5-7 years. Have never had a cone clutch issue, and have never heard of a problem with one on a Volvo saildrive. Ours are Volvo saildrives, which are much different in ruggedness and reliability than some of the Yanmar ones. I am very happy we don't have the Yanmar SD40/50 - those are nightmares. The Yanmar SD20/30 are pretty good.

I keep hearing from others without saildrives how fragile and maintenance intense they are, but have not found that in our ownership. Our last haulout saw boats in the yard 50/50 shaft/saildrives. None of the saildrives were having any work done on them. Over half of the boats with shaft drives had mechanics on them struggling with shaft, cutlass bearings, intermediate bearings, shaft logs, alignment, stuffing box and coupling issues.

I don't think that was necessarily normal, but I was still amazed at the variety and number of issues being worked on - issues that aren't even possible with saildrives.

But everyone without a saildrive keeps telling me how much more complicated they are compared to simple shaft systems.

Mark