More on the rudder

Sat 22 May, HHN day 39: A domestic morning, then more modifications to the rudder, all during sweltering heat.

Today is the 1 week anniversary of the infamous hole digging saga. And the rudder is still firmly planted in it. But the end is in sight. The grand raising will be any day now. Watch this space!
My morning starts with driving Ray and Jeff down to Herrington Harbour South Marina, where Jeff’s recently purchased Hallberg-Rassy 46 is moored. It needs to be hauled out to check some leaks before they sail it back up to their home base in northern New Jersey. They have to motor it up to Herrington Harbour North where a haul-out is booked for Monday. Maybe Cloudy Bay will get an HR neighbour to talk to!

Once they are dropped off, I use Ray’s car for domestic errands. The Raymarine linear drives go to UPS to be sent to Raymarine service center.
I also drop off a new alto saxophone to return. I had wanted a cheaper sax to have on the boat (my playing will be THE perfect pirates deterrent!) and had settled on a Better Sax by Conn Selmar. But as soon as I unpacked it, I was disappointed. The build quality was terrible compared to my Yamaha, and when I tried to briefly play it, it was stuck in the upper octave.
So I instantly resealed it and requested to return it. Back to the drawing board on that one. I’ll probably go for a good quality second-hand sax instead. I’m sure the marine environment won’t be friendly to such an instrument, so I don’t want to have my beautiful Yamaha on the boat.

Oh… now don’t go thinking I’m an established jazz sax player or anything. I had played clarinet at school but reality is I always wanted to play saxophone instead. So in the last year, during Covid, I bought an alto sax and have been learning. I am loving it so far. Oana too, apparently, especially that she has been encouraging me for years to give it a go. She says saxophone playing is sexy… so I have very good incentive 😊

After UPS, it’s the supermarket, then pick up ice for the fridge and drop off rubbish. All the things I need to do now that I have extended my stay. It is midday by the time I actually start any boat work, and by then the temperature is already in the low 30s (upper 80s degF), and quite humid.

I start with the rudder bearing, inside the aft cabin bilge where the cabin temperature is still tolerable. More modifications. I found that the 8 bolts which secure the bearing into the boat are just simply secured into fiber glass holes that have been M8 thread tapped. OK for installation, but not OK for future servicing.
As I test the bearing in-place, 2 of the 8 bolts are already spinning, no longer getting a grip on the female threads. Solution? My new best friends, helical coil inserts. Not really designed to go into glass fiber but definitely better than the current situation.

With that done, and after a nap (too hot to do anything but sleep) I’m outside where at least there is a slight breeze.
Till now, I had the thread on the rudder stock under several layers of tape to protect it when I lowered the rudder. With the tape off, I manage to ascertain the condition of this crucial thread that holds the full weight of the rudder in the upper bearing.

There is some minor galling on the top, and some pretty bad damage around where the locking bolts stop the thread from undoing. The 2 locking bolts simply screw into the male thread and, no surprise, have damaged it.
Given I will place the locking bolts in the exact same position again, I drill an enlarged hole in the damaged area, clean up the thread with my triangular needle file, then wire-brush smooth. There, thread repaired and all good-2-go for reinstallation.

And the last bit of outside prep before lifting the rudder back in: I antifoul paint the areas that are impossible to get to once the rudder is back in the boat.

Last job of the day is the CV joint. Jeff had again kindly driven it to me after it had been serviced at Authority Marine Propulsion in New Jersey – who I highly recommend by the way.
They have serviced the CV, but also slightly damaged the beautification paint that I had applied. So that needs a quick sanding and spray paint to get it pretty enough to not be out of place in the recently beautified engine room.
Beautification is a word Oana conjured up to describe painting something that does not necessarily need paint, just to make it look nice! Surely only a woman could think of such terminology 😊. But I like it.

By bed time the cabin temp is still 28 degC. Let’s see if I can sleep. Thank goodness for the fan above the berths. I simply cannot imagine being here in the height of summer.