It’s been a while since writing. We had a good three weeks’ cruise to Brittany last summer, although the weather left much to be desired. I'll write that up later. Since then, I’ve been focusing on some upgrades. I'll write these up, for a mark of progress as much as anything!
New Rudder Fittings
One thing I’d been meaning to check for a while was the state of the rudder fittings. Limbo’s rudder is a simple affair, attached to the transom and the base of the keel by three brackets.
The bottom, and main, of these turned out to be badly corroded. Not only were the nuts hanging on to almost non-existent threads, the area around the pin was deeply pitted. The middle fitting was weeping rust on the interior of the hull. It didn’t take much in-depth metallurgical knowledge to work out that replacement was in order. The photos below tell the story…
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| Something holding your rudder on shouldn't look like this. Ideally. |
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| The bottom fitting. |
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| In close-up. Ouch. |
As it happened, a marine engineer was visiting the boatyard on the day I was removing the worn parts. He took them away and a couple of weeks later delivered re-engineered and strengthened top and middle fittings and a completely new bottom bracket.
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| New and shiny. |
Getting this to fit back on took a bit of work, but well worth it for a fundamental part of the boat...
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