My rudders seem to not be straight, the left one is toed in quite a bit when the right one is straight, Is it supposed to be like that? I think it might be because the rod that connects both rudders is not totally in the part that goes in it to coonnect it to the rudder.(sorry if that is hard to understand) please help me out.
Make sure you have them on the right side of the boat...they are not the same. With the rudder straight, the arms should be pointing slightly toward the center of the boat.
This is an interesting one as it seems the norm is to have a few millimetres of 'toe in' between the rudder blades as measured from the leading and trailing edges of the blades, some newer tiller cross bars have a screwable end fitting to easily adjust the parallelism of the blades.
I'm not certain how much difference it actually makes to have them toed in.
Happy sailing
anyone got some tips?
If you are sure the rudders are on the right sides of the boat, then give more detail of the problem. Is your tiller bar the right length? maybe you have a H14 bar on a H16. Any other boats on the beach or at a local club you can comapre yours to?
Well first you want some toe in.If your rudder system is sloppy you might want a little more. On a tight system you might put them at about 3/8" toe in. The last thing you want is toe out. Major drag.
You have an adjustable cross bar. That's why it looks like the ends are not all the way in. There should be a screw or bolt at either end. Loosen to adjust them in or out as needed.
If you have screws, get a couple stainless bolts the same lenght and use them instead. This way you can tighten them so they won't slip and it's always easier to loosen as compared to the screw that comes stock.
There is a whole lot of things you can do to adjust the rudders, it's just how much you want to check (alignment, breakaway tension, rake, cams). If you simply want to check the alignment, as said before make sure that the rudder assemblies are on correctly (the arm should be pointing towards the centre of the boat on both sides). Lock the rudders down and check the alignment of the rudders with a tape. You should aim for the front edge of the rudders being 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch closer together than the back edge. If they are not, you should find a screw or some other mechanism on the tiller bar that lets you change the alignment. It's fairly simple and shouldn't take very long.
If you want to adjust the rudders further then check out further details in the sailing and tuning guide at http:/
thx alot, this winter i'll fool a round with them and get them straight, also how do u know if you have racing rudders? the guy i bought it from said that the boat used to be raced so im guesing they might be on there, Oh also i cant look at any other boats on my like, its the only catamaran on the lake and it is the most sexy boat on the lake..haha. By the way i am a 14 year old and i started out using a sunfish this summer and now im already on a catamaran!!
Race rudders would be either the black EPO rudders or the white fiberglass rudders. Plastic ones are not. Check the tip for wear to see what it is made of.