Has anybody else managed to bend the pintles on their rudder assembly shortly after raising their geneker? This has happened twice to my boat (Sail No.326). On both occasions, the boat was being sailed by two friends and it would seem that almost as soon as the geneker was hoisted the rudder just lifted and twisted, they tell me the ensuing capsize was “not nice”!
Is the rudder retaining spring horizontal or vertical ? Early boats have this fitted horizontally which is next to useless and the rudder can lift off the lower pintle ( happened to me too !) causing a rapid capsize..
To be effective this clip needs to be vertical.
Just unscrew it and drill a couple of holes in the right place and refit. There is a large wooden stiffener behind the fibreglass so no need to worry about weakening the boat.
As noted this is an old problem now fixed by changing the clip to vertical. I also replaced the short pintle with a long one as it is possible for the rudder to come off the short pintle but stay on the long one.
Bent rudder pintles
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Posted - 23 Feb 2004 : 13:44:13
