I was experienceing a lot of weather helm. Searched all the posts and eventually epoxied and redrilled the rudders. This solved the weather helm substancailly which is great. Only problem is that when checking the rudders out, I found that the toe in was correct, but that there is approx. 30mm difference from top to bottom between the rudders. i.e the rudders are not parrallel to each other in the vertical plane when looking at the back end only. When looking down the hulls, the bottom of port rudder is definately to far out. Adjusting the spacers where the bolts hold the rudder is not helping. Also found that the gudgeons are not parrallel. Approx. 4mm out again at the bottom which would seem to explain the port rudder being so far out. Has anyone come accross this. I'm thinking of taking off the one peice gudgeon, and extending the holes out on the horizontal plane to align the gudgeons.
Any advise would be great.
thanks
Clint

i don't think you have a problem. the rudders are designed that way though i don't know about the 30 cm figure. more important is the distance between the front edges and the back edges of the rudders, which should be equal or up to up to 1/4 " greater at the trailing edges. this amounts to 'toe-in'which seems to help upwind performance.

I tend to agree with Danny here. Though I cannot measure my rudders at this time (packed away for winter) I vaguely remember them NOT being parallel in the vertical plane when viewed from the stern. Don`t re-mount your gudgeons yet!

However, you do seem very specific regarding your port rudder. And, it seems to me that both rudders should be flared outward the same amount.


Dave

As I recall, the gudgeons / rudders are parallel to the outer flat edge of the 16's hulls. The flats on the hulls are not parallel to each other (Port / Starboard). Tension changes on the dolphin striker can also have an effect of this.

Thanks guys for all the advice.
Matt,when I put the one peice gudgeon in, I tried to get the gudgeon parrallel to the outside edge. What i'm thinking of doing is either to rotate the gudgeon anti-clockwise to bring the lower tip in, or to epoxy the lower hole of the rudder again and drill at a slight angle, and use spaces to set the rudder in the housings. Does this sound like a possible solution to the problem?
Thanks
Clint

With my old lexan blades I experienced a lot of weather helm and occasionally odd stalling situations (I am not sure but I always suspected that those relative flexible blades bend or twisted under load and caused some erratic stalling). Later I found old EPO's or what might be original composite blades (not sure what they are) for my Hobie. In those blades the holes were placed to allow more forward rake. When I tried to mount them in my lower castings I noticed that I had to remove a good amount of aluminum from the inside of the casting so they would swing far enough forward to lock up well. It is pretty difficult to remove any stuff from that casting - power tools cannot be utilized - filing is only possible in short strokes. In other words - it took a long time.
The new (to me) composite blades fixed both the extreme weather helm and the odd stalling situations.

I think making the gudgeon straight (in the correct alignment with the hull) is the best solution.

yoh,
I had exactly the same problem. My second hand Hobie 14 had 2 rudders, one black, one white. The black one was about 2mm thicker than the other and it wouldn't go all the way forward. I sanded back the top of the rudder, rather than the casting, in order to get it to move freely. Both rudders had quite differently drilled holes, neither of which were correct, and both cams were jammed. I filled and redrilled the holes, fixed the cams and now it sails perfectly. It seems to have quite a bit of toe out rather than toe in but I haven't bothered with that yet.