Wheel pulling to the right

[VernonJ]

After having the boat (Hunter 326) out for some maintenance, as I was motoring back to my marina, I noticed that the wheel was pulling significantly to the right; to the point where I had to put an effort to hold it straight. The guys that pulled the boat said there were no issues getting the boat back in the water.

Any thoughts?

 

[DougM]

Is it truly pulling to the right, or is your wheel position when going straight different what it had been? Rudder not straight?

Could you have picked up some weeds or debris on the keel or rudder that causes some drag?

 

[dlochner]

Did they perform any maintenance on the steering system? If so, it is really easy to get it out of alignment with the spokes on the wheel, which as @DougM suggests could be the issue.

The worse case scenario is bending the rudder shaft. This could be done with an improper lift from the Travellift. Or a bent prop shaft which redirects the thrust away from centerline.

Does it have the same pull under sail?

 

[markwbird]

They're not going to tell you if they damaged something. What did you have done?

 

[Benny17441]

Does it only happen when motoring? Check your prop for marine growth or unbalance.

 

[VernonJ]

It didn't occur to me to try without power. I'll do that this weekend. It's not that center is different on the wheel as I lined the wheel up so that the boat was straight (slight shift of wheel to left and boat was turning left; slight shift to right and boat was turning to right). At that point, there was pressure on the wheel pulling to the right. If I let go of the wheel, the wheel started turning to the right.
Once back at the dock, I checked under the boat. Nothing was caught on the rudder, the keel or the prop.
I had my wife move the wheel from stop to stop while I watched the rudder under water; it LOOKED ok.
I am very much at a loss as to what went wrong.

 

[Hayden Watson]

A bend shaft can cause vibration but I do not beleived that it can cause the boat to turn one way or the other. If then bent the shaft so that the prop was facing 10º to starboard, if you rotate it 180º it would be facing 10º to port.

 

[MitchM]

Most travelift propshaft bends cause the shaft to bend ‘up’ towards the hull when the aft strap wrongly bears on the propshaft not the hull. ( i watched an inept operator do this to my boat by refusing to wait for my thumbs up signal that aft strap was properly positioned. rx total shaft replacement, ow. ) for the op s problem i more suspect a loosening of the cables in the rudder control system which can usually be viewed by taking apart the steering pedestal. Edson has an excellent do it yourself you tube video on how those wheel drive systems are to be maintained.