30 ft O'day grounded, bent rudder post

Nov 3, 2010
564
Oday 39 Lake mills WI
I think you should talk to your marina. It should take no longer than a minute or two to drop the rudder if you prepare. I have a radial drive wheel. It requires loosening two bolts to drop the rudder. They may not charge you anything extra to allow you to drop it before they set the boat down. But if you find this cost prohibitive, I would suggest you consider digging a hole if cutting off the bottom 1/3rd of the rudder does not give you enough clearance to remove it. Cutting thru that much stainless standing on a ladder at that angle seems very painful.
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
Okay thanks, it's already on stands so it would require them to bring the sling over which I'm hoping to avoid, I need to just get down to the marina and get started , kind of dreading because of no experience and can t afford to pay shop prices , I wish there was a knoweledgsble person nearby who I could pay a reasonable amount to help with this project but hopefully I can get this done while there is still summer left to take my kids out on the boat .
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
Update, 2 vacant rental properties that both have mortgages have kept me away from the boat. I'm here now and great news, one of the tru hull drains in the back of the boat is disconnected , so that's got to be where the water was comming in . So 2 new hose clamps should fix that issue. Now it's just a matter of getting the bolts loose and grinding the rudder post , stopped at harbor freight bought their most powerful 9 in wheel grinder , There is one bolt going thru the rudder post and 4 bolts near that bolt which must pinch the rudder tube in place .
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
Family commitment in the Poconos , kept me from the boat for a few days, 4 bolts out, just the bolt thru the rudder post left and it's more then half way out , would only turn a couple threads so have to turn plus push on it at the same time to get it to move .
 
Aug 22, 2017
1,609
Hunter 26.5 West Palm Beach
Just a silly thought here....
Has anyone tried straightening a bent rudder post in place? Perhaps attaching a tie down binder or come along type hand winch to the end of the bent rudder post & the other end to something solid, like a strap around the base of the keel maybe?
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
I wanted to do that so bad , especially since my rudder looks nice and the used one will need some work. The advice I read online was that even dropping it then straightening it compromises, the strength of it , I still almost wanted to try it , but I don't see any cracks around the rudder tube , so I'm hoping I can get this bolt the rest of the way out , then cut this bent one off , then seal this used rudder, get them to sling the boat and put it up there and bolt it on . Believe me I had my 4 by 4 truck parked by the boat with a tow strap under the seat , I was for sure tempted .
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
Though as I think I mentioned earlier , the boat isn't just hard to steer while the rudder is rubbing the bottom of the boat , it seems hard to steer even when the rudder is turned to the side and clear of the bottom , not as difficult but still binding.
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
By the way , the rudder is bent toward the front of the boat , I believe from being towed backward , which I voiced did not seem like a good idea
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
Luckily the rudder is so close to the bottom to begin with that it couldn't bend much before hitting the bottom of the boat , so the winching it toward the keel was not an option with the bend toward the keel not away from it
 
Aug 22, 2017
1,609
Hunter 26.5 West Palm Beach
The amount of strength loss you get from straightening a shaft depends on a lot of things. Naturally, alloy & heat treat are the first things to consider. Accumulated metal fatigue is an equally important factor to consider, but it is almost impossible to quantify empirically. You can't hope for more than a mildly educated guess there without serious lab tests. Repeated wave action is a great source of fatigue. If the boat has lived on the ball or in a slip for any length of time, you will have at least some. If you see cracking in the shaft from a slight bend, then you probably have a lot.

I haven't straightened a lot of rudder posts, but I have straightened a lot of motorcycle forks & a lot of industrial shafts, many of which were 304 or 316 stainless. I had good results in straightening shafts that were bent less than 20 degrees one time & other shafts that were bent less than 10 degrees 4 or 5 times. I normally worked to a TIR of .010" over the length of the shaft. Lengths varied from a few feet to about 20 feet. Diameters ranged from a little over an inch to about 10". Most were in the 2-4" range. Most of the industrial shafts that I straightened were in repetitive stress applications where imbalances or unrelieved internal stresses would show up quickly. When straightening, I would normally try to go about 10% past straight on the primary bend, then flip the shaft over & go back to straight. This relieves internal stresses. 10% is a rule of thumb. It's not a perfect number. 90% of the straightening I did was in a hydraulic press using properly fit press blocks. I did do some of it in the machine with jigs & jacks of various descriptions.

If the supports around the rudder shaft were strong enough to take the abuse, I would have been tempted to try straightening the post in place too. I don't think that the truck would have been my hammer of choice though. I think that I would have tried to find something that provided a little more delicate control.

Temptation sometimes leads us to strange places & stranger outcomes though.
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
By the way if anyone lives near Elkton Md where this boat is in the marina and would rather have a 30 ft O'day then their boat up or down and likes these type of challenges, I may be willing to trade boats with you. Since I want to be on the water with my 3 son's, not sweating in the boatyard, watching their enthusiasm for boating disappear a bit more each hot day.
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
I just reread all of the helpful posts on this thread. I missed something important, there is more to do then just removing the 4 bolts plus the one that goes thru the rudder post? The poster who seemed knowledgeable said I need to remove the cables for the steering ect as well ?
 
Nov 3, 2010
564
Oday 39 Lake mills WI
The cables are not holding up the rudder. You will need to remove the cables so you can remove the quadrant or radial drive wheel. Once removed you will likely need to drive the shaft out since it is bent.
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
Okay thanks, this is a nitemare the marina has started charging me 30 a day for storage and the rudder is lost with UPS , they have opened an investigation to see what happened to it .
 
Jan 22, 2008
8,050
Beneteau 323 Annapolis MD
Okay thanks, this is a nitemare the marina has started charging me 30 a day for storage and the rudder is lost with UPS , they have opened an investigation to see what happened to it .
30 a DAY??? That's about double the Annapolis area.
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
They are upset that the boat is taking up their valuable parking space , but when you have a 30 ft boat that is taking on water and has a,bent rudder common sense would be to put it in the back somewhere not up front .
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
Update, of torture summer, after about 3 weeks ups,somehow,found the 120 lb over 6 ft box with my eBay rudder in it and delivered it .The seller I have to note has been awesome during the whole stressful wait. So after,a,couple weeks I though the rudder might be lost forever, so I got the marina to sling the boat so I could remove the old rudder and take it to a,machine shop . The travel lift could not go high enough on the top adjustment band , so boat had to be lowered back on stands. To adjust the strap to a higher grab position . When the boat was lowered the the rudder came up and smashed the rudder tube up out of the boat. Luckily it seems unharmed , just nerds to be glasses to the bottom of the seat .
 
Jun 5, 2016
49
O'Day 30 ft Elkton
So , the eBay rudder is now in place and still needs to be bolted in since a 8-8 metric strength bolt is actually only a 5 strength , you need a 10-8 metric bolt for the equivalent of an 8 strength bolt. How many of you knew that, so my son had the rudder quadrant all back together and overtightened the new,bolt a bit and it snapped. The marina has someone and I also have someone who can reglass the tube in at the top , it's about a,foot long and just seems to help keep the top of the rudder post aligned .