Dotan rudders

G'day Will,

Sent an email to Pat, when I heard he had Dotan's for sale. He seems really impressed with them. It would be interesting to see how they compare to other rudder designs here in Oz. By the time I emailed him his Dotan's were already sold. Someone snapped them up.

Thanks for the price I was wondering how much newies would be delivered to Oz. Maybe one day I'll use this information, probably when I'm not spending money on other bits for the boat. <img src=

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Hey Col,
They actually mentioned that we can get a group discount if we can get a few to buy them.
Maybe I should import 2 or 3 of them.
They seem to be cheaper than the ones made here for a complete kit.
Just a thought.

Cheers
William
nswmossie.com 1635

Will,

There are threads on the last couple of pages of this forum under the names

Mosquito rudders

and

rudder geometry

that refer to the dotan system and even a couple of links to the dotan website. <img src=

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http://www.dotan.com

Regards,

Peter

Hi William

I've just about blown the boat budget this year but may be interested depending on the discount.

Let me know if you're trying to get an order up.

Cheers

Hey Fellas

One thing I really really really liked about the Dotans was you didn't have to slow down or veer into the wind to apply them.

You were always looking forward and it only took 1 second to either raise them or lower them, when your in a crowd or running into the beach, there was never any panic cause you knew it took 1 second to change them. (maybe 1.5 sec's)

Regards

Hi all, Graeme Davies has Dotans on his new Mozzy for a couple of months, I sent him an email asking how they were going, I have pasted his reply below as he cannot use the forum due being stuck on dial up connection to net.

I am pretty happy with the old Dotans, I have not had any problems with the rudders themselves at all.
The main thing you heve to get used to is that they are either UP or DOWN, and there is no in between, so you need to have enought water under you when taking off. When you come in they just ride up automatically. I've never done a surf launch with them so I dont know if that will present any problems.
I do however think that the blades could perhaps have been a fraction longer or able to be raked forward a little more. At the moment the boat has a just a little too much helm, I dont have a hell of a lot of mast rake so I dont reckon thats the cause of it. When you look at the blades they are not kicked under that far and the adjustment which kicks them forward is already on its maximum. This is not helped of course by the forward slope on the transoms which limits the kick under effect anyway. I remember a similar situation on my old boat was remedied by cutting a notch in the blades which helped kick the rudders under a tad, and I also had some 15 degree spacers on the old boat which helped to effectively make the pintle mounting points on the transoms vertical. I must get around to asking the South Africans about this, as you know many of them are using the Dotans.
Apart from that, the up/down mechanism works well and it's just so easy to pop up one rudder when you are going downwind.

Graeme.

I checked them out when he got them, up/dowm mechanism is good, I would interested to find out what they weigh, plastic case seemed a bit flexi but the blades are held in place well.
Darryn

Thank you for posting the feedback. This information is invaluable to us and sometimes it is quite hard to get it from sailors...
I should mention however that there is a mid-way position, you just need to keep the tiller up. See the attached photo. It will take some tries in the water to understand the principle.

Also, we've never received reports from South Africans sailors about excessive weather helm with
the rudder 20-2. I think all the problems could be solved.
Lets look on the problem from other side. Pressure on the tiller is the result of center of efforts(main-sail and jib geometric centre) is being too much distanced from centre of lateral plane. In order to solve this problem there are two hints:
1. Maybe it will be possible to rake the mast more forward?
2. Maybe it is necessary to increase the pressure on the jib and remove pressure from the main-sail.

Usually this helps. I'll try to follow up with Graeme, in hopes that his old email address is still working.

About the rudder box and blade weights and dimensions you can refer to this page: Rudder box 20 series - Blade 2

Happy sailing!

Hey Will,

If you are getting an order together, let me know, if your not, let me know. <img src=

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Thanks

Hi all

Take it from a VERY average but enthusiastic SA sailor who sails an old , heavy wooden Mossie.
The best thing I invested in was my Dotan rudder system.

Sailing is now a pleasure - I have a very neutral helm.

regards
Andrew

regards

Andrew