I have a pair of rudder castings which I thought were the 17 18 20 Wave New Style castings, each one clearly stamped on the inside with an L or an R. However, the angle of the tiller arm seems to be the opposite of what it should be: the "R" rudder casting's arm veers to the right (outward) instead of the left (inward), and vice versa. Any thoughts on what's wrong?

Can you post a pic? The tiller arms on the Hobie rudder system should definitely point inward. That said, I don't recall any R/L markings on any of the 17/18/20 rudder assemblies I've ever owned. So maybe you don't actually have the Hobie system. Also, the handing on the H17/18/etc. system only applies to the upper castings. The lower castings are not handed and the same lower casting is used on both sides.

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There are no marks on my '98 h17 castings. They do point inward. Looks like they would fit on either side otherwise.

I did eventually find an answer: the very early ones were mis-marked by Hobie's casting vendor, but Hobie used them anyway. For the next round of castings they removed the L/R markings. Who woulda thunk it?

Both my boats castings are marked backwards. I've seen it that way on every boat I've looked at

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