'87 nacra 5.7

to center

to center close up

to starboard

to stbd closeup

from the rear you can se how much angle the crossbar would need in order not to bind.
To port

in each of the pics the crossbar is being held paralell to the rear main beam
to center

from the rear, to stbd.

These pics should give a pretty good idea of what's happening.
When the crossbar is hooked up, it is very limited in the amount it can be turned to either side
It makes the tiller stay centered when released.almost like it's spring loaded.
If left like it is, it would eventually distort the holes in the tiller arms.
even if I force the tiller to the side very hard, the rudders will not go even half way to there full turn position.
It seems to me that the tiller should be able to be turned all the way from full port to full stbd. without binding.
There is only 6" of tiller travel before it begins to bind. this travel is only allowed by the slop between the attachment pins,the attachment holes in the tiller arms, and the same in the crossbar.
Note that the tiller crossbar is not being held in the raised or lowered positions, but is bound there by the angle of the tiller arm in relation to it.
I dont think that its a good idea for the tiller to self center. if the boat were to find itself sailing solo, It would potentially go in a pretty straight line, pretty fast.
And i'm not a strong enough swimmer to catch a cat straight up.
All you vets, dont be afraid to chirp in.
By the way, how long do I retain the title of newbie.

have you tried flipping the brackets around?

The bracket should pivot on the crossbar, not on the tiller. I could be wrong though, I'm still a newbie too!

The crossbar would not be long enough to do that. Even so, it ould only bind in a different place.I talked to the original owner today, and he said that this is the way he bought it new 20 yrs ago. he also said it turned on a dime. I dont think he has sailed a boat with unrestricted tiller travel though.

I think the adjuster is on the wrong bar, it should be on the cross bar rather than the bar coming from the rudder.

But I am not sure about that.

just in case I mean not just flipping upside down, but putting the part pinned on the tiller onto the crossbar. No guarantees but that is really the only option you have to tinker with, nothing looked bent in your pics.

btw, nice boat, whats up with the other rollers on your trailer? keeping a dinghy under there?

the original owner had a dingy that he would trailer once in a while. i think I'll take them off and put them up front on the trailer. it might spread out the weight up there a little bit.
I tried all of the above. No difference.
Did you look at the pics and notice the amount of rotation the tiller arms have when turned fully?

I didn't see you replied already. The distance the crossbar spans would not be changed by flipping/spinning those brackets. Would take all of 2 minutes to try.

Found this on google, look very closely at the brackets. Opposite from how you have them.

http://sports.webshots.com/album/547620683mZsIZq

Yes, The adjuster is on the crossbar as U mentioned.

He has a different attachment. The bracket attaches thru the rudder arm horizontally. this is the non upgraded attachment. Supposidly. Either way, it will bind up the same as mine.

I guess the questionb I now need ansewered is if anyone knows if the hobie upgrade will fit the crossbar and rudder arms of a N 5.7

well mine is identical to the one in the photo and there is no binding. If you've tried what I said by allowing the crossarm to rotate in the bracket (the angle will be wrong with the brackets on backwards as you have currently) then either something is bent or when the boat was made something was drilled incorrectly.

sorry I can't be any more help

you only need 1 part of the system to bind up the whole lot

i'm still unsure if which part is binding

so i still suggest pulling the pins that link the 2 rudders to the crossbar and making sure each rudder moves fully, side to side, on the gudgeon, and THEN pinning the crossbar back into the system

could the crossbar be mounted upside down?

It seems to me that you are only getting half your movement because of a previous

fix

. This image shows what appears to be mild steel added on inside the

U

that attaches to the crossbar. I think that this part of the connector needs to be rotating around the end of the crossbar. The mild steel is preventing this.

Did you say that you switched the connector around so that what is on the rudder arm is now on the crossbar? What if the longer

U

section was on the crossbar and pivoting cleanly around its tip? Is the mild steel preventing this switch?
Here is a picture of Airborne's.

It seems like the longer U is on the crossbar.

Here is a page out of the Nacra Manual. In image 13 you can see that they don't even have the U around the tiller. Just a bolt through it(the hole can be seen on Airbornes photo) All rotation is around the end of the crossbar. So you have the upgrade kit, it has been welded, killing rotation around the rivet, and put on improperly?

Bobcat has it figured out.

The connector has been modified and installed differently from what was intended. The geometry of the pins is incorrect which is why they are binding.

But the solution is to buy new connectors and install them correctly, as in the above photo from The Beachcats.

well spotted bobcat, knew it looked funny but not smart enough to know why!

before ordering anything else azcat try reversing the u-joints at the end of the cross-bar as bobcat says

That is not a peice of mild steel. It is a plastic insert that I assume comes with the original design. The previous owner never took it apart. and the plastic peice even has a small dimple in the side of it that allows it to clip into the u-joint. I tried taking it out but then the rudders are very sloppy and the u-joints flop back and forth loosely. It's put together the way it was from the factory, it just binds up.

You've got to rotate those connectors 90 degrees around the pin. I.e. the connector should be coming off the tiller arm perpendicularly rather than straight off the end. The plastic insert will probably need to be removed in order to do that (I didn't think they could be removed, which is why I recommended that you buy new connectors).

It is also possible to install the connectors upside down. The pin that connects to the cross bar must be vertical throughout the whole range of motion. If you install them upside down, they won't be.

I rather doubt that your current setup is how it was delivered from the factory.

i got this from murrays

bernd

Whoops, ignore my previous comment, I mis-understood the photo. The problem is that the part of the connector that should be attached to the tiller arm is attached to the cross bar and vice-versa.

The connector is two brackets welded together. The shorter bracket should be attached to the tiller arm, and the longer bracket should be attached to the cross bar.

You are almost there. There is actually a port and starboard connector. Look at the picture of the 5.2 posted earlier and you can see what looks like a Prindle P stamped on the connector, and it's on the port side. Recent long hours on a 5.8 rudder system refit yeilds little known fact.

I fliped them around and the binding is gone.It has full free travel.
Yippee kaiaaay M F.
I just read the last post from Dave R and need to check for the

P

.
The plastic peice was a little peice of plexiglass. I think that someone put it in there to take up some slop, but every thing was backward.
Thanks to everyone for the input.
It's really great to get such a huge response. I could have messed around with this for months. and still not gotten it right. I had decided to take it out this weekend with the rudders bound up just to see how it worked.
Now on to the next challenge.
In the murrays cat. it has a note about the bungees for rudder kick up. it says to use 5/16 bungee doubled and the manual says it is attached to the tiller bracket pin.
I did this and pulled the bungee as tight as I could and the rudder still falls half way down.
It's mega stretched and I dont think it will last very long.
any suggestions?

i think they all do that

brought mine back from the lake today, checked and they hang down about halfway when the casting is held at the normal angle

the nacra rudders must be much heavier than the plastic rudders i've seen on hobie 16's

the bungee system is just to kick them back and prevent transom damage, not to hold them clear of the water

i'll be adding another jam cleat to the alloy tubes that are riveted to the castings to hold them up all the way

got the idea from looking at airborne's 5.2 pics, some of which have been posted in this thread

Glad to hear you finally flipped those around and did not waste your time and money with the hobie brackets. My rudders are the same as yours and the bungee only holds them up barely halfway, if I trailer the boat I usually take them off, or I wrap some line around the rudder blade so that it holds the rudder in the up position. If you want to pull rudders up while sailing then you have to do what erice suggested.