Amazing. If I read this right the bend was from the top bearing of the rudder post down to the top of the glass tube at the quadrant where the drawing says the shaft is machined down to 1.5" diameter. On my boat this part of the shaft is relatively easy to get to and you could climb down and hold a straight edge on the shaft above the quadrant to see if it’s bent.
Mark, on my boat the aft gusset is higher than the tube so the quadrant contacts the gusset first making a grinding sound. It seems every boat was built slightly different.
Mark , so how did you fix the bent shaft? Did you have a new one machined or straighten the old one?
The bend was at the top of the fibreglass where the shaft is 2”. It could not be detected in the boat. A new shaft was manufactured. The insurance company was good to deal with. I will send a photo when I get back home.
Mark Powers
I have been following this thread and didn’t want to chime in while others offered possible solutions… unfortunately, what you describe sounds exactly what I experienced after hitting some submerged pilings back in 2015. After freeing the boat from the piling field, I could barely turn the helm… I was able to move it just enough to steer us back into the marina and to pick up the mooring ball we had just left. We had no water intrusion, but the insurance company insisted I have the boat hauled out immediately, just to be safe.
As the boat was hauled, it was obvious the rudder shaft had been bent back and a bit to the side.
Before being hauled, we couldn’t really tell by looking down at it while onboard, and it wasn’t obvious when I went into the water to take a look at the damage - though the damage to the prop was very obvious - a blade was missing and another blade was jammed in reverse position (a 3 blade feathering prop).
Though made of steel, the rudder shaft is hollow and I was advised that trying to straigthen the post would weaken the structure and eventually result in the rudder post cracking/failing. THough this may depend on how much bend may be in the rudder post.
A new rudder and shaft had to be fabricated.
Peter Grabow
S/V CAKE WALK III
1987 30 Ultra 430
Jersey City, NJ
