Reef shoe bearing.

[storm petrel]

John,

Two hours for that short run seems a very slow run. Did you have some sail up? Please get back about the rod size used in your rudder shoe and if 8mm does the trick.

Cheers,
Mark

[Killick69]

HI Mark,
I t was worse than a slow run, it was painful. Returning Night Cap to her mooring took only 30 minutes and I did not push hard. No the long run was without sail(s) up. All sails are at home (just finished off the work on them this morning).

8 MM threaded rod/bolts will fit the shoe on Night Cap. In fact I did not do the job, because the 8mm rod was a loose fit. I removed on of the 6 SS rods. It is bigger than 8mm. I believe the only sizes up from 8mm are 3/8 (9.5mm) or 10 mm. I found a drill bit that would just fit and back at home measured it at 9.5mm. I did not do the replacement. Firstly the one bolt I removed was corroded at the points just where it sits in the shoe, however will last till next slip. Secondly the 8mm felt loose and sloppy. Next time I will tale 9.5 and 10mm drill bits and fit 3/8 or 10 mm bolts (or threaded rod). The bolts/rod needs to be a little longer than 50mm, as the 'clamping' distance is 50mm, so just need extra length to accomodate washers, nut/locknuts.P.S. only removed one of the six rods, as the others that I tried were a very tight fit and would need a fair bit of hammering to remove.

Cheers, John

[storm petrel]

John,

Could you unbolt them or did you have to drill them out. My boat seems to have the ends turned over totally ( rivets?).

Cheers,
Mark

[Troppo]

When I changed the rods on Windchaser, the guy at the bolt shop inspected the old one and said I would need 10 mm SS rod. After cutting them all to the exact size of the old ones, I found the new rods were just a little too big to go through the shoe. It was easy to drill out the shoe and boat to 10 mm but I did use an electric drill rather than the hand drill I prefer.

When I first inspected the shoe on the boat, I thought it was riveted as the bumps were smoothed over. However, I was much relieved to find when I scrapped at it that it was decades of antifoul that had built up and there were actually nuts underneath which came off easily with a big spanner.

Several of the rods had to be tapped out but I used one of the rods that came out easily to push the hard ones through. Just careful tapping got them all out.

The four original rods were all slightly different lengths so I cut the new ones to exact size. However, when I put them on it was a typical boat job where there's a million things needing to be done and I had 15 mintues left before the boat went in and the tide was coming in and I was actually standing in water under the boat on the slip trolley and aghhh. I didn't get the right ones in the right holes so had some mucking about while the water rose up to my knees.

If I do the rods again, I am thinking of doing it like this:

(a) leave the rod intact, not cut to length (so about a metre of rod)
(b) at the boat make sure I have more time than previous time and put a nut/washer on the uncut length and wind it on about 15 cm.
(c) push that 15 cm end through the shoe/boat and put the nut/washer on the other side
(d) adjust the nuts either side to give the right lengths poking out
(e) use hacksaw or grinder with cutting disk to trim to size
(f) do the same with the other holes, putting in the remaining full length and cutting to size once it is fitted.

At least in this way, I can customise the size of each rod as I put them in.

Louis

[Killick69]

Louis, that is the way to go, namely cut to length as one goes. Would suggest positioning a nut on the length of rod that will 'fall free' so that the nut can be used to fix the thread where the cut is made. Probably good to use nyloc nuts on the ends. Also suggest the use of washers. On Night Cap washers have not previously been used. I would also suggest one removes one bolt at a time and only removes the next one after the first one has been fitted. Also suggest one turns the rod (use spanner or vice grips) as one taps it out. Looks like some drilling will be needed on Night Cap. I am not happy about the sloppy fit of 8mm rod. My preference will also be for bolts rather than threaded rod. 150mm?? rudder is not that wide??
Cheers, John

[Ianb]

Interesting drawing provided by Steve. With a hollow, foam filled rudder, it should theoretically be nearly weightless in the water, so there would be theoretically little load on the plastic bottom washer.
What intrigues me on the drawing, is the note which look like it says that the rudder tube in the boat is PVC. Is this correct?

[steve]

Yes, the tube is PVC but it is encased in fibreglass as shown on attached drawing.

Steve

[Phillip]

Ianb,

I have removed my rudder in the water and yes there was very little weight, so at least mine must be water tight.
I have also never seen any water dripping from it during slipping.

And yes my rudder tube is a PVC tube. The same goes for the cockpit drains.