H376 Same or Similar
Hi @#$% boats,
Here is the rudder drawing of my H376 as faxed to me by Hunter in August 1998.
The evolution was that the H376 soon became the H380 using the same hull and mouldings. I doubt the rudder was changed but this should be easy to check from a look at the top of the rudder tube and then from under the boat.
The lower bearing consists of a length of stainless tubing 6" OD bonded to the spirally wound fibreglass or Kevlar tube. The upper bearing is the same and, from memory, is 3" OD.
Both sleeves run in UHMW (ultra high molecular weight) Polyethylene bearings pressed into the spirally wound GRP rudder tube which, in turn, is bonded into the hull.
As far as I am aware there is no steel structure inside the rudder and the two half mouldings are simply bonded to the large diameter rudder stock tube - but I could be wrong and am interested to learn from anyone who has taken one apart.
At the time that Hunters went over to this type of construction they built a test rig and proceeded to bend or break several of their conventional stainless steel rudder stocks. However they were particularly proud of the new design as they were unable to break it and the test rig disintegrated when they gave it max pressure but with the rudder stock still intact.
Notwithstanding this, there have been failures of the new version as used in later designs of boat.
I reiterate Steve Dion's question - "What happened to your original rudder that you now wish to change the design please?" You have us worried!