Small Rudder Problem

sailyor

Member
I own a pre-1972 rudder system, and it has worked great, with one problem recently.

It is of course designed to come up when it hits the shore, but it has been coming up even while in deep water more recently. When this happens I lose some control with steering, so I think it's a significant problem. I don't really know anything about my rudder, so I'm not sure if I could just tighten something down to help it stay in the water or not.

Any thoughts? Has anyone else had this problem?

Thanks!
Sailyor
 
There should be a wingnut at the top of the gudgeon that you can tighten down to solve this problem. You don't want to overtighten it since you want to be able to pop out the rudder.
 
If the bottom plate and/or the bottom of the rudder fitting that goes into it are worn, the rudder will pop up when sailing hard or when waves pressure it. If tightening the wing nut doesn't help, look for info here or elsewhere for fixes. I had the wear problem and went to the new rudder design.

Fred
 
Thanks guys! It wasn't a wingnut but I found the loose nut and bolt and tightened it. I didn't realize that was all there was to it! I had thought there was a spring at first.
 
The flat stock under the wingnut/nut at the top does act as a spring. With age, the springiness of the metal weakens and less resistance against the rudder is needed to pop it out of the bracket. This problem led me to begin installing the post-71 gudgeon style rudder setup on my boat as it became too frequent at speed.
 
Not shown is the latching notch in the Latch Plate that the Vertical Plate snaps into.
This notch or the end of the Vertical Plate or both is what gets worn down most often.


4755574667_5e1babce98_b.jpg



Spring or Spring Plate
(No longer available as a new part)

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.
 
Not many people speak about the bolt tube. I'm not certain, but I think the bolt tube helps restrict the side-to-side movement of the vertical plate thereby making it harder for the rudder to pop out sideways in normal sailing. I would make sure there is a bolt tube and that it fit snugly into the transom groove. Why else would it be there?

Fred
 
Bottom strap only has one screw, The bolt-tube fit in the groove in the transom and keeps the bottom strap from twisting sideways. Of course if you have not replaced the wood screw holding on the bottom strap with a machine bolt/nut and washer you will eventually find out why the old rudder setup is called the "Exploding Rudder System."

If you set the Weather Helm to zero or near zero you will reduce the strain on the rudder to the point where a worn Vertical plate/Latch plate my work.
 

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