Just got back from landsailing on the Alvord Desert in SE Oregon, big fun! If you boys ever get an opportunity to try it, take it! All the adrenaline of cat sailing, with even greater acceleration and top end. In beautiful surroundings! Warm!!!
So the Stealth's season ended a few weeks before I'd planned. Big wind day, 20+, screamed around under main alone for an hour or so, and in a big lull, decided to launch the spin. Ran outa lake quickly, messed up the jibe, crashed, popped it back up quickly(righting pole, I'm 160 lbs), but not before drifting broadside into dense lily pads. Wind's now back up, and I'm plowing sideways into the vegetation, mainsheet fully out, unable to steer or leave the windward side to try and clear the foils. Finally jumped into the the morass and pulloed the bows thru the wind, reboarded, and continue to harvest downwind, but at least I'm drifting back towards open water.
Eventually got everything cleared, and blasted around for another 20 minutes before noticing all was not well with the steering. Both bolts on the lower port gudgeon sheared 1/8" below the surface of the transom. Obviously, the side loads exerted by the weeds as the boat was forced thru them weakened the bolts. Now I need to remove the remaining bolts from the nuts/plate securing them. Unfortunately, the boat appears to have spend afair amount of it's life in salt water, so I don't expect them to come willingly. And stainless is such a bear to drill, and to do an easy out requires a fair size hole, accurately drilled. I seem to have a lot of trouble with the hole drifting as I drill it. Can anyone reccomend a higher quality drill bit? Or alternative to removing the bolt bits? There's no access ports on the stern unfortunately, and its a highly curved deck there. I do plan to work on the hull this winter and repaint the boat.
The other issue is the lower gudgeon is bent. Might be fixable, but I'd rather have a new one. I don't recognize the manufacturer, it's in one of the pics, the Stealth is British, and I will ask John about a source. But does anyone know of a supplier stateside that might have it? It looks like an aluminum extrusion with an insert.
Definitely not the boat's fault this time. My biggest regret when it broke, was that I was missing the rest of a great sailing day! Too few left this season(see reference to dirt boating!).

Dave

Name it, Poseidon is telling you something.

more

Same hull? Could have been overloaded as a result of the other issues. At least that one is relatively easy!

I've been land sailing what a thrill. Hoping the TMS-20 gives the same excitment.

I use ''Bosch Titanium drills'' I've tried others, but they don't last as long...
We have to many trees in NY for desert sailin but we do get alotta snow.......(I gotta get a ice sailin thinggy)

Give up on those bolts and tap some new ones. Seasure do a gudgeon with 4 holes so you could just use the top 2 to get the bottom of the fitting in the same place.
You could sand back the paint and epoxy the fitting on to make up for the lack of bottom screws.

The bolts have done exactly as designed, broken rather than the boat when the rudder has been hit hard.

From experiance of exactly the same damage on my Stealth ( ended up bouncing up the launching area with the rudder still down, since learnt to take the mainsail down before reaching the landing area with an on shore breeze ) it is a relatively easy repair. Not sure what age your boat is but forget the 4 hole pintles and replace like for like.

Simply be as accurate as you can and centre punch the screw and starting off with as small a drill as possible, drill a pilot hole. Drill progessively bigger until you start to get close to the edge of the screw ( you will almost certainly not be dead centre ), purchase an easy out ( basically a reverse thread tap on Ebay or likes ) and try to remove the bolt. The heat from the drilling is normally enough to free the thread. You may even find by drilling a bit sideways, as you will, the remaining bolt will break into pieces, a small screwdriver will remove the bits.

On my boat someone had drilled the thread out sufficiently sideways for the new bolt to not be strong enough on one of the bolts and that side constantly kept letting go. I ended up making a 6mm thread in the middle of a 10mm piece of stainless steel stud ( threaded part of a bolt ), drilling the hole oversize and epoxing in the new piece of stainless. Make sure you use the new Pintle as a guide though to get correct spacing of the holes. Seems to work well.

Be patient and work slowly and precisely and you won't have too many problems

Dave,
You can find those Seasure fittings on the internet.

http://www.sailboats.co.uk/Cat~Seasure_Transom_Fittings_4815.html

Bill

For drilling stainless, cobalt bits are the best way to go. I don't recall what brand of cobalt bits I'm using, and it may not matter that much.

Dave,
If you a going to repaint the boat, why not add a access port? Those screws shouldnt have pulled out, they should be through bolted with washers on the inside. Getting stuck in weeds shouldnt rip out your pintles/gudeons. Thats bad workmanship in my opinion.

Cut a hole in the transome and add a port hole, get some bolts (not screws with washers on the inside and use nylon insert SS nuts with backer plates in the hull.

Bill

Dave ,
glad you're ok and damage is little, could be worse.
As suggested the stuff to use on SS is HSS-G Co drill bits. Or simply cobalt, titanium coated bits will only add longevity for the bit and some lubrication.

Use HSS-G Co or HSS-G Co Ti, or HSS-G Co TiN or HSS -G Co Tian

Bear in mind drill bits with high Cobalt content are prone to chipping, so try to keep it steady.

regards

Bill,

the Stealth dont have kick up rudders. This is the safety mechanism preventing a total stern "rip-off". One of the tradeoffs in the design from putting T-foils on the boat. Wayne pointed this out earlier in the thread.

Exactly.

I'm surprised that your Stealth have stainless fasteners there. I remember Wayne fixing his rudder at Grafham last year, and his were brass. I'm fairly sure mine are not stainless either.

Maybe it's a generation thing and John ran out of brass screw

BTW if you can't find those fittings stateside, send me a PM: I can buy one locally an send it to you. the Datchet shop have those in stock (or can order a two days delivery)

The seasure catalog is there: http://www.sea-sure.co.uk/05indexb.html those are on page 5, in the first PDF.

Thanks Wayne, that's the kid of encouragement I need. I tend to be a bit apprehensive going into these projects, and it helps to be reminded to just start and proceed slowly.
Thanks guys for the reccomendations on drill bits. And the sources for the gudgeon. Bill, I appreciate the thoughts on a port on the transom, that's a nice back up option if removing the remaining bolt bits goes awry. I like the brass bolt idea as well. Anyone know what's on the inside of the transom? Is there a tapped aluminum or s.s. plate? Or nuts and washers?
I'll give an update when I get to this project. I still have Flight Risk to put to bed this weekend. Thanks all!

Dave

i had a similar drill project to remove the broken stub of a large stainless bolt from an alloy caliper

bought some brand new HSS drills

started small and slowly worked up the drill sizes always trying to move the hole to dead center

then when i could just see threads appearing through the metal i switched to small diamond bits and a dremel

chinese made diamond tools can be bought very cheaply now and have changed the way i work with awkward metal

was finally able to pick/tap out the corroded stainless threads from the alloy, run a tap through it and it was as good as new with a new stainless bolt

On a project like that I usually purchase a new bit. Drilling stainless will dull any bit. Make sure to keep it cool either by water, watch it if you are using electric drill, or I use WD-40 if I do not have to glass. Fiberglass will burn and melt if it gets too hot from drilling and shorten the life of the bit.

I had to do the same job on my Stealth earlier this year after my two eldest lads hit something on a distance race and lost a rudder!! Like yours, the lower gudgeon had sheared both bolts.
Started with a small cobalt drill bit on a centre-punched spot on the remains of one bolt and gradually worked up to a 3mm drill bit. I then used a screw extractor ("easy-out") on the remains. The other bolt was about 2mm proud of the surface of the transom so I decided to 'dig' around it a bit until I could get a really small pair of mole grips on it. It took a couple or three attempts ut I managed to eventually wind it out.
Repairing the gouges and scrapes was pretty straightforward and I simply bolted the new fitting on. The Stealth has a largish (5mm?) thick piece of aluminium glassed into the transom to take the rudder gudgeons.
HTH

No kick up rudders is a bad idea for a beach cat in my humble opinion. Is the tfoil worth the trouble?