hi
Particularly under motor, but also sailing, I get movement in the lower rudder pivot/bearing. You can feel the rattle through the tiller. It is a simple setup as seen in the photo, not really a bearing but more a pivot.

I spoke to someone who deals in Delrin rudder bushes and he suggested it may not be the best idea to use one depending on your setup. You would have to drill out the pivot that attaches to the rudder to make space for the bush and this may leave you with a weaker part.

He suggested using a section of an aluminium can as a shim?

Any thoughts or suggestions.

There is no doubt and your wife will appreciate you having her safety in mind, because its time to let the old girl go and BUY a new YACHT! :D...

In one instance I swapped metric screw for imperial or vice versa to eliminate
small play.
In the other case, because of different arrangent I had insert made.

ok, thanks
boat comes out of the water on Tuesday so will pull it apart and see what can be done with those solutions in mind.

Sunseeker39 said..

If there is play - then one hole or multiple holes are too big for the bolt.
Therefore
1) remove rudder and find the next biggest bolt that will not pass through all 3 holes per pivot.
2) accurately drill out all 3 holes to neatly fit the new bolt. (ie tight fit)
3) drill through nut and bolt , when in place and insert split pin.

Job done -$10 in nuts and bolts and a bit of labour.

I agree, I done my steering arms and was surprised how the nut and bolt shop could come up with
Slightly different sizes.
A quick repair I'm thinking would be to push a piece of nylon bread board behind to push rudder back!
I think you need some tough board not to give to much.

To prevent this happening in the future make sure the tiller is firmly lashed when the yacht is not in use.

Alternatively, if the rudder is light enough, set the pintles up as pins instead of bolts. The bottom one needs to be about an inch longer than the top one and the top one needs to protrude about an inch above the top of the gudgeon and be drilled to take a stainless R clip secured to the boat with a length of lanyard.

When the yacht is parked, with a security lanyard attached to the rudder, pull the pin and heave the rudder inboard and stow it in the cockpit or cabin if practical.

With your set up you would need to cut the top lugs off the pintles or get new single lug pintles.

Are your pintles and gudgeouns made from stainless or alloy. If they are alloy they need to be replaced with bronze or stainless.

Aluminium and stainless steel are the worst of enemies.

Put them together in the marine environment and you have all out war.

Whoever decided to make those fittings from alloy should be horse whipped, hung, drawn and quartered and then made to walk the plank.

If you want to be able to steer your own ship long term, you have a job ahead of you which is to completely replace those steering fittings with stainless or better still bronze and while you are at it replace that horrible alloy tiller head with a stainless one.

Just my educated opinion. Your yacht and your pocket and your decision.

I was thinking along those lines too. Fix it with new screws or
get rid of enemies alloy & stainless .
How much is a gap, how old is your boat?
My is 42 years and gap was one way .5 the other 2mm.
Than brass insert and set of screw fix the problem,
believe for long long time.