F/V First Team
Admiral
- Joined
- Jan 10, 2012
- Posts
- 6,146
- Likes
- 2,484
- Location
- Narnia
- Website
- www.otisenterprisesmarine.com
- Boat Make
- Northern Bay 36 - Modified
Went ahead and swapped rudders on the 28. Took off the barn door and put on the one I whipped up on sketchup. Nautilus Marine really hit it out of the park on this one. Increase of speed: 2 mph.
The reason for swapping the rudder out was not speed related, that was just a happy side effect. Rather there was an issue with control, the solid shaft would act as a "wing" and load up bubbles along the blade, when that area collapsed it gave a strange shimmy while zipping along that the helmsman was having issue with. Another reason for swapping it out was a few "worm tracks" in the shaft itself around the seal for the rudder bearing. Not a large leak by any means, but any leak is too much of a leak. Nice and dry now.
Yes I swapped them out with the boat in the water. Yes I was underwater. Yes it was very wet. No the boat did not sink. No there aren't any pictures of my sea-side shenanigans. Just some of everything put together waiting for the tide to come back in. We put the boat up on jackstands so that we could slip the rudder out of the skeg and remove it from the bearing. With the boat careened out on her keel there wasn't enough height to remove everything - hence my underwater disassembly and reassembly. Wanted to get it done while there was still time for a Plan B. Worked out quite well. Aside from being wet. So wet.
Original rudder:
The reason for swapping the rudder out was not speed related, that was just a happy side effect. Rather there was an issue with control, the solid shaft would act as a "wing" and load up bubbles along the blade, when that area collapsed it gave a strange shimmy while zipping along that the helmsman was having issue with. Another reason for swapping it out was a few "worm tracks" in the shaft itself around the seal for the rudder bearing. Not a large leak by any means, but any leak is too much of a leak. Nice and dry now.
Yes I swapped them out with the boat in the water. Yes I was underwater. Yes it was very wet. No the boat did not sink. No there aren't any pictures of my sea-side shenanigans. Just some of everything put together waiting for the tide to come back in. We put the boat up on jackstands so that we could slip the rudder out of the skeg and remove it from the bearing. With the boat careened out on her keel there wasn't enough height to remove everything - hence my underwater disassembly and reassembly. Wanted to get it done while there was still time for a Plan B. Worked out quite well. Aside from being wet. So wet.
Original rudder:
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