Keep bending Rudder Pins, why?

I have the old 2 piece gudgeons. The rudders are tuned very well - almost no weather helm, rudders pop up pretty easily, but yet I keep bending or breaking the rudder pins. I have broken a couple of the 3/8" aluminum ones (just pruchased 3/8" aluminum stock from Home Depot, so if the OEM parts use a stronger Aluminum Alloy that might explain that part)

Then a month ago I was in a bind, and the only thing the local hardware store had to keep us sailing was 3/8" threaded steel rod, so I made a couple of rudder pins from that - and now even one of those bent.(Below the lower Gudgeon)

This can't be normal, right? If there is enough stress to bend the Steel Pins, am I getting close to damaging the transoms?

Thanks....

Just because your rudders don't have much helm it does not mean there isn't a very high load on them. It just means your rudders are tuned well so that you don't FEEL the load on the tiller.

Its not surprising you bent pins made from Home Depot parts. I'd be surprised if they sold anything other than architectural grade aluminum. Even bending steel threaded rod is not surprising. The threads effectively reduce the diameter to less than 5/16" and also create a stress riser which would encourage bending.

I highly recommend using stainless steel pins made from 3/8" diameter round bar either 304 or 316 stainless. In short - they don't bend, they don't break. You can order small quantities of round bar from McMaster Carr if you want to make your own pins, or you can buy pins from Hobie dealers or Murrays.

sm

here we have a bunch of low volume, cut to size, metal suppliers. maybe look for something like that, and just drill the hole for pin. maybe have to round the ends a bit, but much cheaper than Mc Master.
the last pins i got from hobie dealer were some sort of black composite material. i have not used them yet, they seem very light. i am sticking with the stainless.

The black ones would be fiberglass. They're often preferred to Aluminum because they don't corrode. Racers, I think, prefer stainless because they don't wear down nearly as easily as the aluminum or fiberglass, are resistant to corrosion, and don't bend or break. However, you have to be cautious with the stainless pins. I believe the system was originally designed with the rudder pin as the weak point - strike bottom, rudder fails to kick up, etc, and the pin breaks, but saves your transom. A stainless pin will not break. If you strike bottom, or your rudder fails to kick up, or (as I read on here) your boat ends up getting stuck in the surf and blown/dragged backwards into the beach, your rudders will break, but probably not before tearing out the transoms of the boat - gudgeons, rudder pins and all. Could also destroy the rudder castings, too, which are prone to breaking anyway and a little more difficult to replace (no longer available through Hobie).

I have heard of some people damaging their transoms just from using stainless pins & EPO's under some of the more extreme sailing conditions. I'm not sure if that's true or not, but I'm not sure I want to risk it, either. I'd rather break a pin or suffer the extra rudder slop than damage my boat, castings & EPO's.

_________________
Mike

'79 H18 standard 'Rocketman II' sail #14921 RIP
'78 H18 (unnamed) sail #14921
'08 H16 sail #114312
'97 H21SC sail #238

I was messing around with it yesterday, and I actually can't get a 3/8" rod though the starboard hull gudgeons - the rod fits pretty snug though the bottom one and then does not align with the top one - pushing the rod over to align causes too much friction so I can't get the rudder pin all the way up. (So I guess I just got lucky I guess that the 3/8" threaded rod has just a small enough OD to fit)
So I guess I will be running the threaded rod until the bottom gudgeons are worn out then bite the bullet and buy the single piece ones and then will be able to use the solid 3/8" Stainless Pins.

Thanks all for your help.

That's true, the alignment of the gudgeons and the holes in the rudder castings can be off. I drilled out the holes in my rudder castings and added the plastic bushings, but didn't get the holes 100% aligned and ended up having to drill out some of the material on the bushings, unfortunately. They were pretty tight as they came, the rudder pins wouldn't quite fit as they were, so I figure I was going to need to drill them out a bit anyways. After installing the bushings, I came to find that I have just as much slop in the gudgeons as I had in the castings, so I'll have to try and fill & drill those at some point. The issue I've run into with that is that the epoxy doesn't bond well to the stainless steel, and when you try to drill it out it just chips out anyways.

_________________
Mike

'79 H18 standard 'Rocketman II' sail #14921 RIP
'78 H18 (unnamed) sail #14921
'08 H16 sail #114312
'97 H21SC sail #238

I would just back off the gudgeon screws and insert the pin. Then re-tighten the screws. There is slop in the gudgeon attachment to the transom. The 3/8" rod should be able to pass through. I would not suggest using threaded rod for the reasons stated earlier.

Regarding stainless pins, they are not just for racers. You run a high risk of breaking rudder pins made from any other material on the 18. The first time you break a pin, and have to try to sail in with one rudder attached to the transom and the other flopped up on the hull, you will gain a great appreciation for why you don't want the pins to break. If your rudders are not kicking up properly, then fix them. Relying on the pins to break because your rudders are not functioning properly is silly.

sm

I absolutely agree, and spent a good amount of time fixing and tuning up my steering system because of it. I suppose my point was just that if the pins were designed to be the failure point (to protect the transom), I don't like the idea of upgrading them to instead make the transoms the failure point. I'm sure you're right that a broken pin is terribly inconvenient, and I would not want to experience it. I just figured that there was still a healthy margin of safety on aluminum pins, otherwise they wouldn't have used them to begin with. If it was in fact a design flaw, or the safety margin is too low, then I better understand the reason for the upgrade.

I wonder if they're more likely to fail in salt water, as I've sailed pretty hard in fresh water without issue. In any case, years of experience (srm) certainly trumps my assumptions about the intent or calculations of Hobie Alter a few decades ago!