I just bought a used O'Day 19 with the swing rudder. I'm not sure what the purpose is. I see that pulling on rope lowers rudder although it is very difficult. Not sure how you raise the rudder without leaning over back of boat and grabbing it which is not easy. Is it designed for making adjustments while under sail or just a docking/mooring adjustment. I have the boat at dock and am going over it. Haven't sailed it yet. Thanks for any insights.
Swing/Kick-up Rudder
- Thread starter weh5748
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The kick up rudder blade is designed to kick up if it gets grounded out or hits something submerged. You want to lock it all the way down when you sail. I keep my rudder blade in the up position when my boat is on the mooring or at anchor in shallow water. I added a hold up line to my blade years ago. It comes in handy when I launch my boat at the ramp. I mount my rudder on the transom and tie off the tiller so that the rudder is straight and raise the blade. It's a heck of a lot easier to launch or pull the boat out with the rudder attached.
Joe
Joe
Thank you Joe. Thats very helpful. Only remaining question is ... how does it kick up if the line used to pull it down is cleated on underside of tiller. Perhaps my line is threaded wrong .. but it seems that once seated in the jam cleat it is restricted from kicking up. I hope I'm wrong because I love the idea that it will kick when required. Thanks again.
That's a good question and one that has plagued me for some time. I've sailed into shallow water and grounded out with my rudder. When this happens, you can hear the rope tighten up and practically see it. This is the time to release it quick.
Also, keep in mind that if you have your centerboard down and you wander into shallow water, you're going to hear the board scraping bottom and this is the time to turn out of there before your rudder blade hits. Because of the fact that your centerboard extends down deeper than the rudder blade, you're not apt to have your rudder blade hit if you listen intently.
When you hear your centboard scraping the bottom, you should have enough time to come about and turn back out of there before your rudder hits.
The down side of this set up for locking the rudder down is that if you're going at a good clip with a lot of people on board and run aground with your rudder blade, the tension from the rope in the clam cleat can split the tiller right in half. This happened on my boat years ago during a race with one of my friends at the tiller.
I really haven't addressed this problem but I suppose that it can be cured with a flip up fair lead open clam cleat. I think they will work upside down as well as right side up. http://www.duckworksbbs.com/hardware/cleats/sd002570/index.htm
Most of the time I try to pay attention to the state of the tide and try to stay out of the areas that will present problems at low tides.
That flip up clam cleat looks like a great solution. Very thorough instructions/info on that link you sent also, so thanks again.
The situation where I have been anticipating problems is coming in to our dock, sailing directly toward shore west to east and doing a quick 180 deg turn around a bouy (to south of dock to pull boat away when docked) and catching dock posts on starboard side, where water is a little shallower than depth of keel fully down ... so I will be raising swing keel every time I come in to about half way down, but rudder will be touch and go. Since water depth can vary by at least 12 inches, depending on rain fall and waves from wind and other boats will impact effective water depth i could be scraping bottom with rudder just when I'm needing to make this sharp turn. So it would be nice to be able to adjust the rudder just a hair .. raise it 8-12" to ensure I don't bottom it hard as I'm making that turn. In that regard it sounds like you have rigged a way to raise your rudder when at dock. Could you explain how you do that. Can that be done while under sail? Thanks very much again for your time and very valuable insights.
/Users/williamhunt/Desktop/IMG_5033.jpg
(tried to drop in picture of set-up but guess I'm new at that also)
The situation where I have been anticipating problems is coming in to our dock, sailing directly toward shore west to east and doing a quick 180 deg turn around a bouy (to south of dock to pull boat away when docked) and catching dock posts on starboard side, where water is a little shallower than depth of keel fully down ... so I will be raising swing keel every time I come in to about half way down, but rudder will be touch and go. Since water depth can vary by at least 12 inches, depending on rain fall and waves from wind and other boats will impact effective water depth i could be scraping bottom with rudder just when I'm needing to make this sharp turn. So it would be nice to be able to adjust the rudder just a hair .. raise it 8-12" to ensure I don't bottom it hard as I'm making that turn. In that regard it sounds like you have rigged a way to raise your rudder when at dock. Could you explain how you do that. Can that be done while under sail? Thanks very much again for your time and very valuable insights.
/Users/williamhunt/Desktop/IMG_5033.jpg
(tried to drop in picture of set-up but guess I'm new at that also)
I'm not that familiar with the O'Day 19 as I am with the 222. The stock rudder blades on the O'Day 222s were molded in two sections at Foss Foam in Fl. Then they were adhered together and pumped with foam.
You can see the seam around these blades where they were put together. Many of these blade have come apart at the seam and eventually the blades break in half. I had two of them break on my boat through the years.
If you're sailing along and the blade pops up 3/4" you will feel a lot of weather helm in the tiller. I think that what happens in most cases is that the blade flexes under the pressure of being off center and this causes the blade to open up and eventually break.
For this reason it's not a good idea to sail with the blade up. I really don't know if your blade was made by this company.
The blade I have now was made a D&R Marine back in the 1990s and it's a solid blade.
I too like to sail up to a dock or my mooring and I do it every chance I get, but there are times when the tide is too low for my rudder blade.
What I usually do is take the sail down and motor in with my blade up and the tiller roped off in the center so it doesn't come in contact with the prop on my outboard.
As far as the rudder blade hold up pendant is concerned, I drilled a 1/4" hole through the trailing edge of my rudder and installed a fair lead on top of the rudder head, and added another fair lead open clam cleat on top of my tiller. I also added a piece of leather around my tiller as a chafe guard to keep the ropes I use to center the tiller from digging into the tiller.
I modified my rudder by adding and O'Day 25 tiller and lowering the pintles down 1". The original rudder blade pendant lines had 12"X 3/16" bungee cord attached to it with a hog ring. What the bungee cord does is put tension on the pendant line and helps to keep it centered on the blade between the inner housing when the blade pops up. Otherwise the pendant line will get jammed in between the blade and the housing.
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Great shots. A picture is worth a thousand words and those photos really tell the story. Looks like I need to get busy and make some modifications. Thanks for quick response. This will come in handy today,
Bill
Bill
The tiller that came with my boat was thin and and narrow. It was made to fit in the rudder head between the metal plates. The tiller that I bought off Rudy is thick and wide and has metal plates mounted to it that can fit over my rudder head, but I was lacking the rudder head height above the transom for my tiller plates to bolt up to the existing hole for my new tiller.
In the fourth pic over you can see that I moved my pintles down to the lower hole and drilled two new holes. This gave me the space needed to be able to connect my tiller to the rudder head. All I needed was to mount a couple of stops on the rudder head under these metal plates to keep the tiller from scraping the top of the boat's transom. I use a couple of Aluminum screen door parts that are "L" shaped which can be found in any hardware store. I needed to cushion the top of each of these stops with something soft so I drilled and tapped them for small machine screws and added a couple of small pieces of StarBoard that a friend gave me.
I like the shape and size of these tillers because they provide enough wood thickness to add the hardware that you need. This pin on my tiller is used for my Autohelm ST 1000+ autopilot. I also use this pin to snub off my rudder blade pendant line with a half hitch to prevent my blade from creeping up while I'm sailing.
This is probably one of the best mods I did to this boat and it's served me well for many years. I can get about two years out of the bungee cord but it's easy to replace.
In the fourth pic over you can see that I moved my pintles down to the lower hole and drilled two new holes. This gave me the space needed to be able to connect my tiller to the rudder head. All I needed was to mount a couple of stops on the rudder head under these metal plates to keep the tiller from scraping the top of the boat's transom. I use a couple of Aluminum screen door parts that are "L" shaped which can be found in any hardware store. I needed to cushion the top of each of these stops with something soft so I drilled and tapped them for small machine screws and added a couple of small pieces of StarBoard that a friend gave me.
I like the shape and size of these tillers because they provide enough wood thickness to add the hardware that you need. This pin on my tiller is used for my Autohelm ST 1000+ autopilot. I also use this pin to snub off my rudder blade pendant line with a half hitch to prevent my blade from creeping up while I'm sailing.
This is probably one of the best mods I did to this boat and it's served me well for many years. I can get about two years out of the bungee cord but it's easy to replace.
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Joe, the rudder on the O'DAY 19 should be similar to the one on your 222, not exactly that same design perhaps.....but, closer to your rudder than hte one on my 1979 DS II. I've attached a few pics of the 19 rudder. I am resonably familiar with the 19 (from photos?) but it seems that the rudder kicks up like the one on the 222.
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It does look very similar Rod. If the top bout of the rudder is round like mine and the pendant line connects to it in the same area, the bungee cord may work for it.
Years ago when I bought my boat I didn't know about this bungee cord set up until I talked to Rudy at his store.
Every time I tried to get my rudder blade down by pulling on that pendant line, the line got caught between the blade and the inner casing and I'd have to lean out over the transom to free it so that I could get the rudder all the way down. This gets old after a while and it's hard on the ribs.
The bungee wasn't the final solution either. I needed to take the head apart and make it a little narrower than it was. This took some time and it was a trail and error process.
Today that rope never gets caught inside the rudder head, but the blade won't come up if I release the hold down line and pull on the hold up line, unless I give the blade a little help with my boat hook or my kayak paddle. It takes just a little nudge on the upper bout of the rudder just below the lower pintle to get it started up but that's OK with me. I keep a short stick for that purpose in my lazarett and it seems to work out OK.
When you start lowering pintles on a rudder you need to make sure that the leading edge of the rudder is going to fit under the transom after it's raised an inch. I suppose that one could add to the top of the rudder head some how in order to gain some height. I don't know how one would go about doing that though. I ran my idea by Rudy and he seemed to think that raising my rudder 1" would have no negligible effect on her steering or sailing ability and that was good enough for me.
You better get "clanking."
Just remember, if it ain't broke don't fix it.
Always keep the blade fully down when you're sailing. If it's not all the way down, you'll feel it in the tiller. It will feel like strong weather helm.
I don't rely on that open clam cleat under my tiller and this is why I always take about three wraps of this line around my tiller and tie a half hitch to the metal pin that I use for my autopilot. This seems to keep my rudder blade from creeping up. I really believe that sailing with these blades partially up can cause them to flex and open up at the seams. The end result is that they will eventually break in two. New rudder blades are very pricey.
This is all very helpful. Just want to make sure i understand .... sounds like one approach is to drill a small hole in top of rudder blade, maybe half way down and attach a cord or bungee for raising rudder when you need to? Or build a small hook to grab it. Maybe my rudder just needs some cleaning and "lube" where it moves within the metal plates so that it will 'float' up more easily. I got the message that I always want to sail with it all the way down.
I really don't know what kind of material or core is inside your rudder blade. Most blades were pumped with foam. If your blade has foam inside you don't want to get water in it.
Before you drill the hole, make sure that you spot it in a place where it will work best at lifting the blade.
After you find that spot, drill a larger hole through the blade in that spot and fill it with epoxy and filler. After it sets up and dries, you can go ahead and drill a 1/4" hole in the center of that filled in spot for your braid line. No water will get into the board if the hole is sealed properly.
Joe - Your last photo that seems to show a line/rope coming thru transom into cockpit, is that the line you use to fully lower the rudder. I was out on Lake George yesterday afternoon with strong gusty winds and going fast enough that I never got the rudder all the way down. Didn't feel I could lean way over transom to push it down manually. So I re-looked at this thread and noticed that second line in your photo. I need to be able to push/pull rudder down under sail. Would appreciate any suggestions.
aps in annapolis md sells an jam cleat the will snap open then your rudder hits something. I used it on my precision 23.
Yes. The last photo shows the rudder blade hold down pendant line which goes through the built in fair lead clam cleat mounted under the tiller.
What I usually do is pull it until the rudder blade is fully down and then cleat it and wrap in around the tiller about three time and take a single half hitch over the Autopilot pin mounted on top of the tiller.
This definitely isn't a great arrangement for locking the blade down if the rudder blade hits something, but it does keep the blade all the way down.
Most of the time I'm using the autopilot to steer and if the blade creeps up I wouldn't know it. So I try to avoid this from happening. They do make a special clam cleat that will flip up automatically and release the pendant line in the event that the rudder should hit something.
http://www.duckworksbbs.com/hardware/cleats/sd002570/index.htm
Here's picture of the rudder hold down pendant line where it is attached to the rudder blade. The line passes through a 1/4" hole which in turn enters a 1" hole on the side of the blade, and is knotted. I had a plastic cap for the 1" hole and it got lost, so I just fill the hole with caulking and paint right over it.
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I have the hold-down line that you describe but the way its threaded up thru the top metal part of the rudder behind the pins, then runs into cockpit above the transom I have too much friction and no pulling power. Thats why I thought maybe you pulled from lower on the rudder thru the transom. It appeared that hole in back of your transom was for that but as I look more closely I guess thats an electrical cable of some kind. I still don't see an easy way to fully lower rudder especially if you need to do it under sail.
I installed that auto release clam cleat during restoration.Just happened to find it at marine supply store.Didn't even know these existed but it is a must have for a "kickup" rudder.Mine has popped several times as I often am sailing near shallows.Might save some damage.
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