Replacement Rudder Pins

I have a 1984 H18 and sail in fresh water. I will be replacing the rudder pins and want to know is there any advantage to drilling out the castings and installing the 7/16" bushings listed in the Hobie catalog or installing any pin other than the stock aluminum?

Thanks
t-bone

T-Bone,

What rudder system do you have??? the Origonal or the "Up-graded" Rudder castings (same as the H17's)

I have the "up-Graded" Rudder castings on my 1984 H18 ... and I sail in salt water. So NO aluminum rudderpins for me. I use Murray's "Hollow" Stainless Steel Rudder pins w/ the Nyloc bushings. They are lighter and stronger then the "Solid" Stainless Steel Rudder pins from Hobie .... and they are cheaper too. (Sorry Jeremy)

The nyloc bushing are very important as they prevent the SS Rudder pin from wearing away the softer aluminum rudder casting ... I currently have a set of Rudder castings that someone used w/o the bushings and the holes in the casting are now egg shaped and way oversized. To fix them I'll need to find a machine shop to either fit an insert into the castings or or fill the holes w/ Aluma-weld and re-drill the holes.

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HarryMurphey
H-18 mag/ #9458
Fleet 54 Div 11

No worries Harry. You know what they say about opinions.
Cheaper= check (you're comparing apples to oranges; solid vs. hollow, so it's not exactly a fair comparison but I'll give it to you)
Lighter= check
Stronger= hold on a minute

Do you know how many hollow pins I've personally had to cut out of castings? At least a hundred. They bend and get tweaked because they can not support the loads, especially when sailing in waves and strong wind. When they bend there's only one way to get them out, cut em. And it's not pretty. You have to take the blade out of the hacksaw and do it with your fingertips. Conversely, I have never had to cut a solid stainless one.
Aluminum ones are no problem, they wear out at the interface, or bend like a pretzel and they're easy to cut.

Oh yea, and Harry. To fix your rudder castings with the elongated holes. Put some wax on a new set of Hobie bushings, mix up a batch of epoxy, use 404 or other HD filler and fill em with the bushings in place. You'll be set.

J

Unscrew the gudgeon and take the whole darn mess off the boat to work on it in a vice. That's what we had to do one time when one of the rudder pins bent on the 20.

As for epoxying the bushings, I did the same thing but skipped the wax all together and just glued the bushing right in there. Figure I can always drill 'em out if it ever comes to that.

By the way, I'll second the solid stainless rudder pins. Buy a length of 304SS rod from McMaster Carr, cut it to length, drill the holes and you're good to go.

sm

Thanks Jeremy,

I've had the exact opposite experience .... bent a Solid SS Rudder Pin (which surprised the heck out of me) .... so I tried a Murray's Hollow SS Rudder Pin set, they've worked well and wiegh I quess only 1/2 as much as the solid set.

Somewhere long ago, way back when I first started sailing Hobies (a H16 actually) I made a set of "Beer Keg" Beach wheels ... I first used a solid axle ... boy did that axle flex when yor picked up the wheels. So I got out my engineering books, did some reading, and they said a hollow axle would be stiffer .... something about the strength is in the "Wall" of the material, a solid rod has two walls, a hollow rod has four walls .....

I didn't quite understand why it worked, it envolved long equations w/ alot of greek symbols ... but the hollow axle was alot stiffer.

Don't forget the trick of placing a 3/8 SS Flat Washer on top of the "Top" gudgeon between the gudgeon and the rudder casting. This prevents the Casting from resting on the gudgeon and being worn away.

I'll try that trick w/ the epoxy and fillers ...

Oh, I've had to do the hacksaw thing including grinding the hacksaw blade down to be shorter in hieght to fit between the transom and bent pin .... There is also something known as a "Mini Hack" (get the metal version). I'm just glad that the SS is relatively soft as metals go ..... but now I have one of those Dremel Tools and a Rt Angle Dremel Tool also .......

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HarryMurphey
H-18 mag/ #9458
Fleet 54 Div 11

Oh, I would like to be able to remove the gudgeons, BUT .....

I sail in salt water ...

Factory construction; SS gudgeon screw into aluminum backing plate ....

Gudgeon screws have not been out in 20yrs????

I'm betting the screws and plate are most likely corroded together ... permenately

So I'll stear clear of that "Pandora's Box" as long as I can ....(I pray that I never need to remove THOSE screws!!!!!)

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HarryMurphey
H-18 mag/ #9458
Fleet 54 Div 11

I'm there with you Harry! That can turn a .5 hour job into a 2.5 hour job real quick. I touch as little as possible to do the job right. Oh, and an angle grinder is what I use if it's not a beach repair.

Sail on, friends!

J

I don't understand. Wouldn't a solid rod have only one wall (outside) and a hollow rod have 2 walls (inside and outside)? Technically still only one wall.

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Jeff Serene
1984 Hobie 18 Magnum
Phoenix, AZ

For a given material, the solid will be stiffer than hollow. However, it's possible that the hollow rudder pins are a different alloy than the solid or perhaps the hollow pins are cold rolled and that process makes them stiffer due to the work hardening involved in which case we're not comparing apples to apples.

Of course as you get closer to the centerline of the pin (or beam whatever the case may be), that material does less and less to increase the overall stiffness (as a function of the diameter^4) but having that material there still does increase the stiffness. That's why in many cases, the reduction in weight by removing the core material is more beneficial than the loss of stiffness that results from removing that material (think I-beam).

sm

sm

My quess is that the "hollow" pins are made from a slightly different SS alloy that is harder. But they do bend, my friend handed me one of his H18 Hollow rudder pins ... it was bent at almost 90* ... the gudgeon/gudgeon screws failed when he hit a sandbar.

And "case hardening" may have something to do with the theory .... as I said I really couldn't grasp why it was suppose to work that way .... the calculus formulars where involved, long and filled w/ symbols like, Omega, Theta, Alpha ....

Harry

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HarryMurphey
H-18 mag/ #9458
Fleet 54 Div 11

I have the original castings and no plans to update at this point. So it appears stock pins is the way to go.

Doesn't matter which version of the castings you have. I have the original castings as well. All the pins are the same diameter. All you need to do is drill out the holes in the casting to accept the larger bushings (which are MUCH better than the original white nyliners) and decide what material pins you want. I personally think stainless is the way to go for 99% of applications because they virtually never wear out. Aluminum pins maybe if you're sailing in the surf.

sm

Guys,

Correct, both types of rudder pins are the same diameter .....

When you say "surf" do you mean "salt water" surfbreak??? Never ever use aluminum rudder pins in salt water applications !!!!!! If left in too long you WILL be cutting those pins out w/ a hacksaw. Especially if you are not using the nyliners, which the H16 doesn't.

I've also seen, from excessive hard beach landings where aluminum pins deform .... I'm not talking bending but deforming ..... the pins had hard "steps"/offsets in them where the gudgeons were. The pins looked like they had zig-zags in them. ( I had to cut both above and below the gudgeons and then had to drive the remaining pieces out of the gudgeons ... I believe I remember that being on a friend's H16 ... that was 4 cuts, luckly it was aluminum.)

When I first got my H18 I tried to use nylon rudder pins (like I had on my H16) ... didn't work .... as the boat went faster and faster the nylon pin started to bend/flex/deflect. this effected how the helm felt and eventually the pin deflected enough that the rudder casting popped off the pin and would flop around behind the boat. This made steering .... "difficult". I tried fiberglass rudder pins ... the fiberglass pins broke half the times before the rudders kicked up. Again the rudder was flopping behind ....

So I tried the SS Rudder Pins ... stuck w/ them ever since. I make sure my rudder releases are well lubricated (dry lube) and operating properly. This is VERY important with the "old/origonal" H18 rudder castings as they have a tendency to "lock-up" and break vs releasing. In a fresh water/non-sandy enviorment you can use "silicon grease" .... but if in a sandy enviorment you have to use a lubricant that will not attract and hold sand, hence "dry lube". Most of us sailing in salt water/sandy enviorments have had to install the "up-graded" rudder systems on our boats.

If you have the old system try to Pre-Release the rudders before "hitting" the beach ....

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HarryMurphey
H-18 mag/ #9458
Fleet 54 Div 11

There is the age old theory that if you're sailing in breaking surf, you are better off using a non-stainless pin (aluminum, nylon, fiberglass...) because if you end up being pushed backwards by a wave with your rudders down and the rudder hits bottom, you want the pin to break rather than the transom of the boat to tear out. Personally, I prefer to use a stainless steel pin all the time. I would much rather not have to ever worry about the pin breaking. I've seen aluminum pins that were worn down by the gudgeon, that were bent, and that have broken off...no thanks. But some would argue the other way, that's why I said 99%. It would be interesting to hear what the guys sailing in the Tybee are using. My guess would be stainless.

sm

Thanks for the information.

I would like to install the larger bushings that are available into my original Hobie castings. I know the holes need to be enlarged to 7/16". Can this be done with a common drill bit or do I need a reamer?

t-bone