Steering / Rudder Issue

[tgsailor]

I was out yesterday in my Lancer 30 and had trouble with my steering when I put the boat hardover (either way ) during modest winds. At one point my steering locked up and made a grinding sound when it was put hard over.
I had control if I kept the boat out of the extremes of steering to either side and made it back to the marina. I have an Edison pedestal (cable) and when I looked at the connection to the rudder post, i noticed the rudder post would rise, maybe 1/2 " to 1" when I cramped the wheel either way.
Does anyone have any ideas? Could this be a bearing (are there bearings in that rudder post)? The cables are good and tight and it turns fine if I dont' turn the wheel to its limits either way.

 

[Stu Jackson]

Edson has a pretty good website and a very good manual. Sounds like you need to do some (deferred?) preventative maintenance.

 

[seadaddler]

Try

If you can have some one turn the wheel to the extremes left and right while you look down at the steering to see what is going on,try it at the dock to see what's going on with the steering or maybe it's not the steering and maybe the rudder post or some thing else is binding up.
Nick

 

[Ross]

Re: Try

It sounds llike you are jambing the rudder against the stops. Your rudder or quadrant must be making contact at the extreme ends of the rotation and lifting on an obstruction.

 

[Bill Roosa]

Rudder hitting the hull?

Sounds like the top of the rudder is hitting the hull. The rudder stops are probably set wrong or have shifted.

 

[sailaway78]

Rudder hitting the hull

My first thought was that the rudder was hitting the hull, and the grinding noise kind of verifies this. But the rudder raising up doesn't fit with that scenario. Have someone turn the helm hard over and see what the rudder is doing. Also check your rudder stops.

 

[Cayennita]

Maybe there was a teflon bearing or spacer between the rudder and the hull at one time and wore off or broke off. The rudder should not go up or down at all. By doing so you are probably taking the quadrant over the stops and creating the grinding noise. Check the underside of the quadrant to see if there are marks or grooves made by the stops. If the stop (s) is mounted on top as is mine then the grooves or marks will show on top of the quadrant as it happened in my boat.

 

[AXEL]

I have noticed the rudder on my C30 will go up and down about 1/4 of an inch as I turn to extreme right & left. I don't know why it does this but it has never been a problem. I don't have rudder stops. When I first bought the boat the very first run taking her home I ran aground. I put her in reverse to back off the sand bar and the wheel swung hard over and got stuck. The rudder had jammed against the hull. I put the emergency tiller on and was able to free it. Since then I am very careful not to turn to extremes. I will say that one time I was hearing a grinding noise and the steering was very stiff. The cable from the pedestal had worn throw a sheave and was "sawing" where it broke out. One day the cable snapped. The emergency tiller got me home that day and I learned a lot about replacing the cable that weekend.

 

[Don12364]

Put one foot on the quadrant to prevent it moving up and turn the wheel to full lock. Assuming it is not riding up over the rudder stops and if there is no jamming or grinding then you only need to prevent the rudder from rising.

I made a collar between hull and rudder for my H376 to prevent this.

To get it on without dropping the rudder I took a piece of rigid PVC plumbing pipe of approx the correct diameter and cut to the required length (about 1/2").
I cut it through to make a 'C' clip and then cut a short length out of the circumference of the tube to make it the correct internal diameter.
Then I snapped it over the rudder stock and then fitted a Jubilee clip over the collar to hold it in place. The Jubilee clip will close up the collar to take up the correct diameter.

 

[druid]

I'm not sure how the cabling is done on your boat, but on my Catalina 36, it was done wrong: the "pull-pull" system had to severe a bend in it, and there was no way to lubricate the cable. The Result was a grinding sound near the extremes like you describe, followed by complete steering failure. That's when I found out that yes, you CAN steer a Catalina 36 with the emergency tiller! I replaced the system done properly and Far Cove was the easiest-steering C36 around!

I'd check the cables NOW, if not sooner.
druid

 

[tgsailor]

Thanks...this is very helpful.