The Rudder

The rudder has been made up for some time and today I cleaned it up and did a trial run with the rudder gudgeons and pintles. Here it is fitted to the boat . The pie shaped piece is the drop down rudder blade which increases the underwater area.

 

 

I'm using a single long pin through the two sets of hinges and discovered that the trim strips on the transom prevented access for the pin. I have removed a scallop shaped piece of the trim strip so that the pin can be inserted and removed. Another problem was that the shoulders on the thick part of the rudder hit against the trim strips limiting the angle that the rudder can swing through to about 42 degrees either side of centre. I'm trying to decide whether that is enough or do I have to remove more of the trim strips to get 2 or 3 more degrees.

Here's another photo of the upper hinge.

With the rudder in position I wanted to get a feel for how long and at what angle the tiller needed to be. I like to sail standing up when possible  so the tiller needs to be a bit higher, Here it fits nicely in my hand.

Sitting down the tiller needs to be lower so I will arrange for a few degrees of movement to cater for these 2 positions.

I could have sailed the boat out of the shed and down the street! This photo, with me sitting in the boat, might give some idea of the overall size. I'm pleased to see that I wont need to duck as the boom goes over from side to side, it will clear my head with room to spare.