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In the lift - hauled out at Ortega River Boatyard after a very pleasant sail from the Rudder Club up the St. John's River - bright sunshine, temperature just so, good breeze. |
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Preparations for lowering the rudder; we were in the swing anyway while the bottom was being pressure-washed, and the whole procedure only took about half-an-hour : > Remove quadrant > Support base of rudder with blocks > Loosen retaining collar bolts > Lift boat off rudder Ensure that the rudder is not blocked before you have removed the quadrant - you will need to be able to turn the rudder to get access to the various components. |
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Working in the lazarette; caving is good preparation... |
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Rudder's off and post is being cleaned; found a shallow groove scored in the forward face of the post - couldn't identify cause until we cleaned up the brass collar at the top of the shaft and found the grease nipple corroded and broken - replaced. |
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Daddy's little helper; work takes longer, but it's so much more fun... |
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This shows the bronze collar above the epoxy rudder sleeve; there is a recess at the top for packing and a sealing ring (shown removed). Incidentally, looked like the rudder had been removed previously and lining tape applied at the base of the tube, disintegrated pieces of tape and adhesive were pulled out, confirming my opinion that this tape really is a temporary fix. |
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The end of a pretty good day - moonrise over Womble, and we're off to bed... |
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Womble was hung in the sling at the end of the day before launch, to give us time to let the injected epoxy bearing mix cure overnight. The rudder is re-hung, and blocked underneath for fine positioning. As it turned out, the boat was not quite level in the sling, and the rudder tube was minutely out of alignment with the keel - couldn't shift the rudder that last degree to starboard. Still, it looks pretty close... |
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Epoxy injection results, outside and in. We sealed the exit from the rudder post with a collar of plasticine, and covered the exposed rudder surface with wax paper. The epoxy bearing mix (50/50 graphite powder and colloidal silica mixed with standard epoxy to a "mayonnaise" consistency) was injected until it popped the plasticine collar port and starboard. When extravting the syringes from the injection holes, care was taken to ensure the hole was filled with epoxy. |
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The epoxy bearing injection equipment. We used the three syringes, one in each hole simultaneously to allow the epoxy to be forced in; total volume was about three full syringes. The rudder post was cleaned and buffed before four applications of mold-release wax. Although we did spend some effort on preparing the post, I was not overly concerned with the epoxy not releasing - it won't stick to stainless steel even when you want it to. |
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At the moment of truth, the rudder did indeed break free, but was very tight in the post; after some faffing around with grinding paste, we decided to pull it out again and sand off a "waffer theen" layer from the newly-injected epoxy bearing; we also cleaned off the post and greased it, and were happy to see it slide easily and smoothly back in on the first attempt. Back in the drink she went, only a couple of hours behind schedule. With the particular configuration of the T33 rudder, we effectively only built a single new bearing surface, rather than a pair. We plan to fit simple shim pieces at the top of the post, to reduce wear on the new bearing, which is otherwise performing excellently. |
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