Practical Boat Owner - February 2016

PRACTICAL

Quadrant

Parallel key to lock the

stock to the quadrant

Retaining collar

Saddle with

thrust washer

Top bush

The worn
original bush

The old

parallel key

was severely

corroded

A new parallel

key had to be

cut and fi led

to size

Ready, steady, dig

The issue that can be most testing

is digging the right-sized hole.

Some boatyards are concrete,

and digging would be out of the

question: the boat would have to

be chocked up high enough to

provide clearance. If you are lucky

it will be clay or sand, and not

rubble or rock. This is a really

physical job: a previous boat

needed a 60cm hole in a yard of

sand and stone, and a friend’s

boat needs over a metre. It is a

couple of hours’ work.

It rained, so the rudder was

lowered into the pool of water that

had been a neatly dug hole,

surrounded by the clay-rich spoil

that clung to shoes, waterproofs

and pretty much everything else.

Having removed the rudder,

I compared the old with the

new. I measured the size of the

rudder tube and compared this

measurement with the new

bearings. If I was to have had

new bearings made up at this

point, I would have made notes.

The old bearings were tight in the

rudder tube because they were

old, so I cut them out carefully

with a hacksaw blade.

At the top of this rudder tube

is a housing that screws down

on to the top of the rudder tube

and is then bolted in place. It

holds the top bush in place

and also contains a water seal –

basically the sort of seal used as

an oil seal, a rubber-encased

metal ‘washer’ with a lip that is

held open by a stainless steel

spring. The water seal is useful

in preventing seawater ingress

caused by following seas when

the stern tucks down. The old

seal was a mucky collection of

bits of rubber.

As I already had new bearings,

Water seal

Top bush