I had Dawn B. hauled by the local boatyard to launch her this morning, on the way the truck hit a good bump. The rudder sensed that this was its moment to experience true flight and leapt from the stern sailing thru the air at 65 mph for a brief but memorable moment before the road rudely brought its flight to an end. No one was hurt and other than some road rash, one bent bolt and five ground off acorn nuts all is well. The lesson is I should have added the stopper block on the upper pintel. It’s on it now. I think I was fortunate to have one of the rudders that was made of solid teak.
Jonathan
A lucky escape then! My rudder on Xiphias is also solid and I just hauled out a few days ago and found a lot of wear again in the lowest pintle/gudgeon after only 2 years following renewal. The gudgeons are bronze and were machined for me at a yard in Thailand. Perhaps the material was brass (i.e. wrong specification). Does anyone else have this problem? Should I be using Delrin or something like that, or is it just due to the weight and leverage? I have also been guilty of not securing the tiller properly from time to time. Would appreciate any feedback on this issue from other owners.
Mark Fuller
I think the answer to gudgeon/pintle wear is delrin bushings. Our 1981 BCC didn’t come with bushings, and after about 6 yrs and a trip to Hawaii and back, there was enough wear that small chop from abeam or so (while at anchor) caused annoying clanking. Sam told me that they were made from naval bronze, so the machine shop used some 1" naval brass to replace the pintle’s pin. The bushings have an 1/8" shoulder, and have lasted fine.
The wear on the gudgeon may not be concentric, and the new hole with the fitted (1/8" thick) bushings may end up slightly off from where it started out when new. I had to shim the upper gudgeon with an epoxy pad, to make everything line up. You might do a forum search of gudgeon and pintle–Roger has some good advice.
I was hoping for a real bronze rather than naval bronze, which I believe is really a brass as it contains some zinc. However, there hasn’t been any corrosion problems, like de-zincification.
Dan Shaula BCC 59