Passage had a fabricated stainless steel rudder post heel fitting that had a lot of pits and corrosion and the bottom plate was completely missing. The following picture has the old and new fitting side by side. In the final assembly, the bottom plate is welded to the cheek plates. The rudder post has a stub which fits the guide plate hole - the surfaces are separated by a ss washer. The rudder post stub has a cross hole in which a heavy cotter pin will fit. This holds the rudder post in the fitting

	The bottom plate is a heavy skid plate that protects the bottom of the rudder post if the keel grounds.

The parts were made with excess material so that the assembled and installed fitting could be ground with a hand grinder to fair the fitting to the keel shape. The machine screws are flat head 1/4 -28 and are counter sunk into one cheek plate and threaded into the opposite side cheek plate - making for two flat surfaces. The old fitting had countersunk screw heads but had plain nuts on the other side. The resulting bumps cost .016733 knots in boat speed, and besides, were ugly.

The following picture shows the radiused corners. The fitting will be bedded and gaps will be filled with thickened epoxy and faired. A purist will no doubt note the failure to use the same type screw heads...

After some serious thought I've decided this is actually a test to see which type screw head better holds fairing putty, resulting in some future year, another technical article.

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	Stan Barnes, long time owner of Shamon had access to his father in law's foundry and build a mold for an aluminum rudder heel fitting. Click here for a larger view

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January 9, 2012. Mike Parades sent in the following interesting photo and email. We are looking into this. Stay tuned.

Hi Ron,
Here is the photo. I don't know the situation at the rudder head. Everything seemed to be moving fine when we sailed her to our wintering site. She was hauled out and put on a hard stand, where I discovered the rudder issue after cleaning her.
Thanks,
Mike

My reply to Mike:

Hi Mike

Although I don't have a picture of #111's cockpit I am assuming that the rudder head/tiller connection is on the sole at rear of the cockpit. Marionette's set up is the same. My rudder post can't go higher in the shaft tube as there is a shoulder molded on the post - see photo. If you have the same system then it might have been 'crushed' by some upward force on the bottom of the rudder? maybe a grounding in which case you might see some evidence on the bottom and/or bottom edge of the rudder? Or, perhaps a lifting strap from a travel lift when hauling was too far aft and forced the rudder up?

If you felt no difference on the tiller, and see no grounding evidence, then this might be a likely suspect. Also, when the boat was moved it might have been lowered, normally on a keel block, then poppits are placed. If there was a block under the rudder that could have caused the upset.

Assuming than the rudder shaft is not bent you might be able to lift the rudder back in place without removing the heel fitting. This leaves the issue of the 'stop' on the rudder shaft that was supposed to stop upward movement....

Ron