rudder lessons learned

Posted By: shenanigans
Date: 6/16/08 9:30a.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

I completed building the new rudder for my 88 N24. In the process I learned many things about the Nimble boats. First off , I think everyone including myself thought that the rudder for the 20' & 24' were the same. NOT so. If you have been following my broken rudder saga you know that I lost the top 1/2 of my rudder when it broke . I used the bottom 1/2 to get the profile of the old rudder. Jim Bailey was kind enough to make a template of the rudder from his 20' When I got the template & compared it to the one from the 24' to my surprise the rudder on the 24' goes aft another 12". I didn't have the top piece of the old rudder to copy so I used the template from the 20' to determine the height. All went well building the rudder. I went out to the mooring yesterday at low tide & was able to stand in 3' of water & got the rudder on. When I climbed onto the boat to attach the "tiller thingy" to the new rudder post guess what. The rudder post didn't come up high enough. It was low by about 4". Instaed of tearing my new rudder apart . I am going to take the "tiller thingy to a welder and have him weld on 8" gusset pieces that will go down each side of the rudder post and then I will through bolt them. One other lesson I learned is I cannot seem to find the pintals & gudgeons to match the originals. Everything I see seems flimsy in comparison. Anybody know where to get these. Thanks for listening & hope my mistakes help you avoid the same ones