Saturday 25 October 2014

Pimped Up Rudder


Find that your stern lifts and you broach when paddling in steeper seas?  This rudder might be the answer.  It is a tandem rudder which apart from having more aesthetic appeal than its smaller cousin, gives you more control when conditions get interesting.

We did a down wind run in 20 knots for 30 kms in Moreton Bay.  This is a shallow bottom bay so your wave period is short and the waves are steep.  The few times I broached in the breaking swell was due to the setup of the rudder - there are a few settings for spring tension to keep the rudder in position and I hadn't wound it up sufficiently so the rudder was not fully down when I was on a run (not to mention smacking into a few jelly fish which caused the rudder to lift).

We spent the first hour and half of the 3 hour paddle, running across the front of the wind and swell, before turning for a direct line down to our destination.  The conditions were a little scary in places with the swell pushing up onto some shallow banks and breaking into deeper water.  I hit 27 km/hr surfing into the shipping channel and there wasn't a lot of control happening!  Once we were across the shipping channel the size of the swell dropped off for our run into Manly harbour.






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