3582Hrs – Steerage Way
A challenging day today as I tried to get my head around the rudders and tillers. I hadn’t really given the rudders a lot of thought when I loosely hung them in place months ago but today I had to switch on a bit. Thanks to Jacques I knew that the rudders had to swing freely to 30 degrees on either side so I figured that was a good place to start. First off I measured the angles and then spray painted some lines on the floor so I could see what was what. Next up I used some wire to replicate the cord lashings and replaced the dodgy zip ties I’d used to temporarily hang the rudders. Once that was done I discovered that although the port rudder swung OK the starboard side fouled the hull and wouldn’t swing past about 20 degrees. There was nothing for it but to take it off the boat and plane down the leading edge to give a bit more clearance. Once I got it re-fitted it swung much better. That said I’m not really happy with either, in hindsight I should have taken far more care to get the stern and rudder leading edges dead straight. The plans show a perfect 4mm gap all the way down, the gaps on Gleda are as much as 7mm in places and far from even. I can only hope that once the proper lashings are in place and epoxied as Beat advised there won’t be any adverse effects. It took me most of the morning to get the rudders sorted so it was after lunch before I was able to focus on the rudders and tiller bar. I took plenty of time to measure and re-measure all the while checking clearances. I realised straight away that I’d be shortening the tillers quite a lot so as to avoid fouling on the dinghy and aft platform but I did it gradually to prevent cock-ups. I was pleased to find that the tiller bar was high enough to clear the dinghy in it’s stowed position which was a bonus.
Once I was happy I dropped everything down so that I could cut the tillers properly and then make up and glue the wedge shaped blocks that will take the tiller bar spigot pins. I’ll explain more about these next time.
