A friend of mine has a 79 Martini with an Alpha one drive. LAst night he hit something and broke teh skeg, just under the gear case. He is planning on still running the boat for the season, I tried talking him into getting it fixed. What kind of handleing or performance problems could he face with running a boat with a broken skeg??

The boat won't be stable. I guess that if it's a old boat and if it doesn't go fast that it proably won't matter. Of course everybody is going to think of him as being a idiot. If that alone doesn't bother him...

Is the whole skeg broken off? How deep does the drive sit?

They are not that $$$ to get fixed...$100-$150+ depending on damage. You could always get a skeg guard for $100, but I learned the hard way with those and broke my drive all to pieces. If you don't hit anything they are great for a repair and they also look cool.

All of about 1-2 inches is left of teh skeg. How does the skeg guard attach?

You can get it at overtons.com. You slide it on over what is left of the skeg and drill two small holes for the ss bolts. They are very small flat surface bolts. I lost my my skeg guard when I hit a chunk of concrete in the bottom of the river during low tide. It just hit the tip, but broke the entire skeg totally off where the bolts attached the guard. I did about 2K of additional damage, but it would have happened skeg guard or not when you smack concrete @45mph. I was just happy my drive was still attached to my boat.

The Boat won't go fast enough to be unsafe

Thanks Guys!!!
He actually ordered a SKEGGARD from overton's last night.
They look cool www.skeggard.com WE will let everyone know how it works out!