Saturday, January 23, 2010
Split Rudder: Step One, Remove Rudder
Completed without incident. Hope the rest of the repair goes as well. Much to my surprise, the whole assembly did not plop out at the speed of gravity once the retaining pin was removed, but had to be slowly pulled out. The whole thing was very reassuring, and surprisingly still well lubricated.
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Have same problem with my rudder on G26. Have it in my garage and will rebuild this winter. Have noticed when sailing and especially motoring that the boat does not track well and tiller must be held all of the time. What are your thoughts about changing the size of the "horn", the amount of rudder ahead of the rudder post to being a little smaller to correct that.
ReplyDeleteJohn and Janet:
ReplyDeleteTruly, when I took it off the boat and really looked at it, I'm not sure how much you could safely remove. There is only a very small width of material in front of the axis of the post.
We don't have problems with the boat tracking and can even lay the tiller down without securing it and it will stay on a straight course for a good while, but even a tiny little bit of seagrass or anything will make it impossible to steer. Let me know what you decide I would be interested in seeing what you do.
I agree that there is not a lot of horn there but keep in mind that the rudder post bends rearward just after it enters the glass and has a number of half inch spines inserted through it then bent backwards to form a backbone for the glass and filler. Check out the Grampian homepage, at www.grampianowners.com/ if you have not already done so. Mine split because a P.O. had let it freeze with some water in it and although I repaired it last winter I still obviously had not got all the water out. This year will split it and redo whole thing. Hope to be able to talk to a local designer to see if I can improve on the design a little to make it track better. My boat has an imboard Yanmar so when powering the prop wash hits the rudder horn first of course and makes it turn the rudder. Will also install a rudder lock with a clamp setup and lines to the cockpit sides. I love your blog and look in every few days. I will try to send some pictures of work as I do it. Sorry for the long comment.
ReplyDeleteWow John, Please take pictures when you have it apart! I am dying to see what you do!
ReplyDelete