Have a leak in one of my hulls. New to Hobies and I'm curious about the backing plate for the gudgeons. Any risk that if I remove the gudgeons the plate on the back will shift or is it set in the glass?

Dan

The backing plate is set in the glass, but not that firmly. I had sheared off a gudgeon bolt on my 17 and when I tried to extract the stub, I ended up 1) stripping the threads on the backing plate and 2) pushing the plate in so it wouldn't catch the bolts anymore.

Can you say "access port?" D'OH!

Just be careful not to push in on the bolts to much and you'll be OK. While you've got the gudgeons off, you might want to try the newer 1 piece cast aluminum gudgeons. They eliminate any alignment problems between the upper and lower old style steel gudeons. They're kinder to the pins, too.

Matt Bounds

Also, the backing plate is aluminum. Be careful not to cross thread or mess it up and use Loctite/anti-seize compound.

Here's what the plate looks like on the Hobie 18, I don't know if they are all the same.

I was told that the gudgeon plate picture can't be seen. I'll try again.

[img]http://www.thebeachcats.com/albums2/album211/MVC_011F.sized.jpg" border="4[/img]

Ya know, we all like to hear a good disaster story, ...and that picture must have a good story behind it.

Well, yes, it was a pretty bad ending to a beautiful day. (and vacation)

I was in Panama City Beach for a week of sailing from a Gulf Side condo. Launching through the surf and sailing down to Shell Island for solitude and shell collecting, or the other direction to the crowds at Spinnakers Beach Club was a daily decision.

Had a wonderful time all week, although just like the previous year was having trouble with the old-style rudder system on my 1981 Hobie 18, but I could just manually kick-up the rudders on the "final approach" to the beach when coming back through the surf, and as long as I remembered to also raise the daggerboards (another story) everything was all right.

Well on the last day the wind was up and the surf had been building bigger than usual, so I waited a little longer to reach back and pop-up the rudder that was still locked down for steerage. It wouldn't pop. Rapidly approaching the beach with no way to stop or turn in the unusually large surf, I actually stood up and grabbed the rudder arm with both hands and yanked as hard as I could, it held fast and we surfed into the beach with that rudder locked down.

The amazing thing was the EPO rudder was undamaged, but as you can see the stern required some repair.

When I got back to Memphis I ordered the Rudder Upgrade Kit from Hobie and haven't had kickup problems since.