I am thinking of putting the rudders from a Prindle 18 Classic on a Prindle 18-2 hoping this will get rid of the hard steering helm as they are a few inches longer.

Has anyone already tried this? And is so, did it work?

I have tried it on my old 18-2 and I thought it was better--especially downwind when you have all your weight forward and your rudders are barely in the water. It adds drag, but it works. If you have a lot of helm, I would check out the rake of the rudders, first.

Hey Dan thanks, appreciate your response. I have my mast raked as far forward as possible, and my rudders raked forward to the stops on the adjustment nut and still have a strong weather helm.

Looked at rudder alignment had have about a 1/8 inch less from the leading edge the the trailing edge.

When you did this did you extend you gudgeons any?

I replaced the stock rudder set up on my Mystere 6.0 with that of a Prindle 16/18. They worked better than the stock rudders.....until one snapped sideways (rudder and casting both) when a swell passed under me at sea. I'd recommend giving it a try. After all, it is a simple un-bolt, re-bolt blades only, swap-over isn't it?

By the way I have never regretted the breakage because it was the heart of a fantastic adventure/story.

I'll bet your trouble with heavy helm can be solved with tuning.

Gary

C'mon fess up......... have you been mucking about with the sails????

Have done all the mast rake and rudder rake configurations possible, still have a heavy helm. Problem on this boat is you don't want to neutralize the helm with raking the rudders under; which I have done and doesn't solve the problem.

Wanna tell us how you broke that rudder and casting? Those things are almost bullet proof



I know we both speak the queen's English, and I fess up to just about anything if I knew what you were talking about

I had an 18-2 as my first catamaran and never had helm issues.

Which rudders do you have, the first or second gen for that boat? First gen are square tips and the second are rounded and the same at the 19 ended up with. I had the first gen rudders and the boat sailed great.

This is my second Prindle 18-2, and I didn't have the issue either; however, that had the stock Dacron sail. this one has an upgrades sail.

But I am thinking that maybe my upper forestry may be from a P19 therefor not allowing me to fully pull the mast forward to alleviate the heavy helm


Your new day of hope, any idea's?

I sail an 18-2. You shouldn't have hard helm if the rudder rake is set properly. When set right, mine is two-fingers-on-the-tiller smooth.

The P-19 has 18 inches more of mast and I believe a different forestay. An easy way to check is to see how many holes down on the stock shroud adjusters you go to get a tight rig. If you have an 18-2 forestay, 6 holes down should be tight but allow mast rotation. 7 is way tight and anything more than should be near impossible. If you can get your shrouds pinned near the bottom holes, your mast is raked way too far aft which means your forestay is too long. The pic below is almost square on and you can see the degree of mast rake on the rig with unloaded downhaul and mainsheet.

I would check to make sure that you don't over-tighten your gudgeon to tiller crossbar bolts too much. Have you bought the extensioner kit with springs? If not, you should along with the plastic shims to take out the slop. Cheap and easy. Should be tight, but easy enough to move the rudders with one finger. Also, make sure you're not accidentally running your mainsheet from the traveler car over the tiller crossbar down to the tie-off. That'll add tighten it up a bit.

Really hard helm or nasty lee helm usually means the rudders are raked too far aft. Turn the lockdown bolt so that when down, they're about 2 inches forward of the transom line. Use a yardstick against the stern of the transom. Bottom fore tip of the rudder should be about 2 inches forward of this line.

Hope this helps.



Doug

My 18-2 had a dacron jib and mylar main with the old "square" rudders.

Not to ask a dumb question, but you are getting them locked all the way down right?

2012? Yeah, anybody other than what we have now or what we had before.

Ok, we'll start from the beginning ... do you know how to measure "mast rack" using either the main halyard (perferable) or the traps??? Tells us your measurement relative to the rear crossbar.

Next "who's" sails and type ("pinhead vs squaretop") do you have??? Dougs look like "Danger" Sails??? other common ones are "Smythe", "Elliot-Patterson", "Saber" in the USA.

Give us that information and we'll compare it w/ Dougs measurements and we can try and locate what needs to be changed/adjusted.

FYI: On my P19 w/ my pinhead mainsail (Smythe) my mast rack was approximently 18"-20" forward of the rear crossbar ... on my "squaretop" it is 12" behind the transom!!! as recommended by "Randy Smythe".

Adjust one thing at a time ... mast rack then rudders in this case since you can use Doug's P18-2 as a comparision to verify settings

Oh, the use of the longer P18 rudders is common to solve the steering issues on P18-2 and P19s. I purchased the upgraded eliptical though, but watch them as the have a tendency of splitting from the top down due to deflection under loads. It can be fixed if you discover it in time before destroying the blade .... you install dowels to tie the two sided together to prevent the sheer forces from splitting the blade

Harry
TheMightyHobie18/P19mx

Sorry about that old chap, i will re-phrase.

have you changed the mainsail from stock - maybe to something with a bigger roach?

probably obvious but on my cat, .01mm off and i have wicked helm... now that i have them set perfectly i have almost no helm .

I have used a sharpie to mark the exact spot they work best (as they seem to slip around a little with use)

Doug:

Can you measure your upper forestry and let me know what that length is? And, I am it six holes down, how far out is your forestay turnbuckle; are you butt to butt or is there some thread showing?

I'm getting some nasty weather helm that is you let go and the boat turns right up to the wind

Ok so here is where I am at now, forestay is adjusted all the way in (I'll have the rake measurement shortly). I have about an inch of forward rudder rake and can't get any more than that.

The sails are Danger, and I have spoken to Jay Glaser who had sent me the Prindle 18-2 tuning guide (which I will send to you BTW) which give a great point of reference to start.

I'm no expert (by any means) but if your sail is worn out the draft will move back and cause that issue. Even if your sail LOOKS really good you can have this issue. Don't ask me how I know!

I'm not sure if you can have it recut to fix the problem or not. I was told its time for a new main...

Clayton

I'll measure all elements of my forestay this weekend and let you know. I'll take pictures of my rudder settings as well.

Ideally, the boat should have neutral helm and fairly light helm at that. The stock rig when tuned should give you this. Something's wrong if you have severe weather helm. Are you using the stock downhaul or an after-market? That was one of the first things I replaced on my boat.

Sounds like we have the same mylar main/dacron jib Danger sails. And thanks, but I already have that Prindle 18-2 tuning guide.

John,

I'll repeat what I suggested yesterday ... Measure mast rake using the main halyard !!!!

There are too many varibles for you try to measure the individual pieces ... you will need to measure and compare every part starting w/ the bridle wires, the forstay turnbuckle. the lower forstay, the upper forstay the shackles holding the forstay together, the shackle at the hounds .... etc etc.

JUST MEASURE THE MAST RAKE !!!! so we can help you ... that is what we need to be able to help you. We do not need to care about every little measurement only the over all measurement which is indicated by the mast rake measurement. "Don't get lost in the forest"

Then compare that measurement w/ Jay & Pease Glaser's P18-2 tuning guide, it should have a recommended mast rake measurement in it.

Once that is correct then move onto the rudder measurements. I've mis-tuned my rudder rake once for the mast rake and had terrible helm issues .... The first thing Randy had me do was ... MEASURE THE MAST RAKE!!!!! In my case the mast had to be raked back and the rudder rake reduced. The rudders were raked way to far forward was the majority of the problem but the mast rake was wrong also ... combined creats weather helm ... really bad weather helm !!!!

There is not much difference between a P18-2 and a P19 its like the P18-2 was a reduced sized copy from a Xerox copier.

I believe that your mast is under raked and your rudders are over raked most likely ... any bets????

Harry Murphey

P19 owner since 1991

Not sure how exactly mast rake is measured on the prindle using the main halyard.

On the T we take a trapeze forward, tie a bit of extenston line to the trap handle and with the mast straight front-to-back, we pull the extension line & trap taught at the inner gunwale bridle tang. We mark/grip the line at the intersection point with the tang at gunwale (forward edge)...then walk back to the transom keeping the trap taught to check where the mark intersects the outside gunwale. Pre-spinnaker days (classic rig very similar to Prindle 18-2 & 19) the recommended location was 10 cm behind the rear beam. With spinny, we now run it typically right at the top/outer corner of the transom for most conditions...sometimes 2-10 cm down the transom below deck line.

Hi Mike,

You can use the main halyard or a trap line ... both will work. You discribed the technic perfectly.

I use the main halyard since I'm too lazy to undo my trap bungies and sometimes I mistakenly let the bungies go and "zip" into the hull they go on my P19, so you need to re-string the bungie through the hull ... which sometimes takes a straightened "coat hanger" to fish the bungie through ....

Harry

OK gents, here is what we have:

Rudder Rake = 1" forward using the straight edge transom method as outline in the Prindle owners manual and Jay Glaser's 18-2 Turning Tips worksheet. To note, there is no room left on the adjuster bolt to get any more forward rake.

Mast Rake (used two methods)

A.) Trap Line - ran rope to the bridal tang that move after to where the mark intersected the the sheer edge of the boat. This was 5" aft the rear cross beam. This is suppose to fall about half way between the shroud plate and the rear beam

B.) Did the tape rule/main halyard method as outlined in Jay Glaser's Prindle 18-2 Tuning tips and this was 28' 6" the minimum for this is 28' 9.5" and the maximum is 28' 11" which would be too little rake.

Both of these are telling me I have too much mast rake, which explain the heavy weather helm and why the boat wants to turn right up the minute I let off of the helm. And here is the problem; my forstay adjuster is already adjusted all the way in with no further adjustment left to move the mast forward.

So the only other conclusion I have is that my upper forestaty or something else on my rigging is not right, or it is and I need to shorten something to get the rigging to where I can get into the ball park for adjusting.

Any other ideas?

Thanks for you help gents, appreciated