Date: 9/1/2009
Name: Bob Abelin
email: b_abelin@yahoo.com
subject:RE: Help with new kick-up rudder
Wow, that is one stout rudder pin attachment. Is that entire thing metal? It looks like you could pick up a car with that thing. I'd say that you should take the rudder to a machine shop and grind it way down to fit on the boat. Clearly it is way stronger than it needs to be and probably way stronger than it even should be. As a general rule, the parts that are attached to the boat should be weaker than the boat. That way if there is some weird failure it is likely to be on an easily removable part that can be quickly repaired. If the piece is stronger than the boat, you break your boat, and that just really sucks. Also, if you fix the rudder to fit on the boat then it will be usable on every other SJ out there if sometime in the future the rudder changes hands. My $0.02
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