The rudder on our ODay 25 has a draft 7" greater than the stub keel, board up. We are tide-bound in our moorage and require a 8'+ tide to clear the entrance bar. My worry is clearing the bar with the keel only to snag the rudder and maybe tear out the lower gudgen or pintle.
From my reading here I understand the ODay 22 has a pivoting rudder and I was wondering if the same design might work for the 25.
How do the cheeks clear the lower pintle? Where is the pivot? Is the rudder blade cut on an arc or straight, horizontally or slanted? How do you like it and what problems have shown up?
I've been toying with various configurations none of which are very satisfactory and sure could use some help.
Thanks much, Geohan
Hi Geohan,
The O'Day 192s and the O'Day 222s have tip up rudders and I personally like them. We don't have a lot of depth at Low Tide in our YC mooring field and consequently I keep my rudder blade in the up position when I moor.
My tip up rudder came with a pendant line with a one foot length of 3/16" bungee cord attached to it with a hog ring. The bungee has a loop on the end which goes around a bolt attached to the rudder head just under the tiller. The purpose of the bungee is to tighten up the pendant line at the upper portion of the rudder blade and keep it centered so that the line doesn't get caught between the blade and the inside of the rudder head which will jam every time. This isn't always the case though even with the bungee. I had to tweak up the rudder head a little to get a tighter fit for the blade.
This pendant line which is attached to the blade, runs from the back of the blade and up inside the back of the rudder head and exits over a bolt under the tiller to a self rescue clam cleat under the tiller. The purpose of the pendant line is to keep the blade in the down position. The upper portion of the blade has a flat spot on the edge which bottoms out on a piece of Teak in the rudder head. If the rudder blade should creep up a little while you're sailing, you will feel a lot of weather helm in your tiller.
I made some vast changes to my rudder through the years. I added a second pendant line to hold my blade in the up position, which included a brass fair lead on top of the rudder head and a second self rescue type clam cleat on top of the tiller. I also use an O'Day 25 tiller which is more substantial than the chintzy tiller that came with my boat. Because my tiller is wider than the other one I had, I needed to raise my rudder head up by lowering my pintles. Otherwise, my tiller would have rubbed the top of my transom. The blade on my rudder protrudes under my boat a few inches and I'm glad that I had the clearance to raise my rudder head.
I also had to add some aluminum stops to hold my tiller up. I Mickey Moused it from things that I bought at a local hardware store in town.
My tiller has a stainless steel pin for my autopilot. The reason for the leather sewn to the tiller near the pin is for chafing protection for when I tie off my tiller to my stern cleats.
A couple of years ago, someone on this forum made his own tip up rudder for his O'Day 25 and it came out excellent. Maybe he'll chime in. I'm pretty sure that I have the pictures of it that I took off this site after he posted them. At any rate, here are some pics of my tip up rudder for you to check out.
Joe