More questions for the experts! :)

Yakass, that is interesting. I can't find any diagrams that show the drum used at the steering handle, maybe it's a very recent change? My TI was made late Jan / early Feb - arrived in OKC on 11 Feb.

Marius, hadn't thought about the rudder pin. I'll have to check it / try another - I have several spares. I have forgotten to raise it a few times, though I'm almost always loading on my trailer so it's still in deep enough water there. That seems to leave the vibration unexplained though, can't see how a binding rudder pin would cause a feeling like turbulence or tires-on-rough-pavement through the steering handle...

At any rate, I had figured it was just a normal phenomenon and it appears not. I'll have to pay more attention to it next time, see if I can figure out what's really going on.

We have broken quite a few rudder pins on our TI (nearly all were self induced, by bumping the bottom at launch or retrieval). Sometimes I forget to release the down line when I come in, or we hit a shallow spot (the possibilities are endless lol). The damage is seldom apparent right away. One indicator of a half broken or severely damaged pin is very stiff steering, or tight spots as the rudder swings from one side to the other. On several occasions my rudder half broke (only at the bottom or top) from hitting the bottom during launching, then while on the water in deep water sometimes hours later just sailing along minding my own business, the rudder fails completely and falls off for no apparent reason.

Another thing that can make steering tight is if the rudder strings were adjusted during the winter, they can easily get way too tight during the summer (tight enough to make the steering tight). Between winter and summer the length of the boat changes around 1 inch because of the linear expansion of the polyethylene.

Hope this helps
Bob

Pretty sure that makes your model earlier than the ones I have inspected, as they didn't even land in Aus until about a month after you received yours (though for all I know they were stuck at the docks for months).

And I agree that your rudder pin is worth checking. And while you're at it, put some grease into the gudgeon and smother some on a pin before putting back. I have seen that fix steering woes a couple of times, and do it to my own boat as well.

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Kayak Fishing Specialist: SLH
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