Tag Archives: shaft

Rudder Rebuild: The Shaft Part I

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As you might recall, we lost a rudder while at sea crossing from Minerva Reef to Tonga – it was an utter rudder disaster.  We managed ok for over 1,000nm with just one rudder before we were able to get our hands on a temproary rudder which we then had custom fit to our boat.

But it is time to replace both rudders now that we are in New Zealand and the boat is hauled out.  We researched many different options including having Jefa Rudders custom design them from the UK; a boat builder in Auckland, NZ;  Foss Boatbuilders in Los Angeles; and considered having Norsand Boatyard do the work. There were pros and cons with each company, so we decided to hire local professionals that we had first hand knowledge of their expertise and skills.  They had already worked on our boat and had years of glassing experience.

The Rudder Shaft

The first thing we have to do is design and build the rudder shafts (or posts).  Technically, both of our rudder shafts are “in tact” but the tines or fingers on the port shaft are damaged.  At the top of the shaft you will see a ring and one tine sticking out.  This is the front of tine and there is supposed to be a back.  The middle tine is broken half way in the front and has no back portion and the bottom tine is completely gone.

Damaged Rudder Shaft with broken tines

Damaged Rudder Shaft with broken tines

We engaged our friend Rob at RH Precision while we were still in Tonga.  We love Rob!  He has done several stainless projects for us and is just a gem to work with!  He has all of the fun tools and machines for welding stainless and aluminum.  Matt finds the dimensions and all of the measurements to our existing rudder shafts (thanx to the Catana Mailing Group and several other Catana owners who shared their specifications).  

We triple check all of the measurements with our existing rudder shafts (both the damaged one and the one that is still in tact).  And then we double check them again.  Matt specifically orders 6082 aluminum (from High Grade Metals in NZ) which is stronger than our original lighter aluminum.  Rob works his magic and expertly replicates our rudder shafts as per the diagram.

Bigger is Better

Rob then drills the holes. There are 4 holes near the top which is how we connect the post to the boat and 4 holes for the tines.  We decided to go with 16mm tines which are bigger and stronger than our current 14mm tines.

I assumed Rob would be able to do the tines as well, but I was wrong.  We had to get the rods for the tines…hmmm.  Rob sends us to Vulcan Ullrich Aluminium in Whangarei where we are able to purchase a 5m of 16mm rod.  We have them cut it into (8) 280mm pieces and we take the almost 4m of extra rod back to Rob as a gift.

The Final Steps

Rob pounds the 8 pieces into each hole for us and then we take it to Absolute Stainless to tack them in place so they wont move (tack weld).  Yep, this is a process.  It doesn’t take long to tack weld them as we were able to pick them up the next morning.  The next step is to have the rudder shafts anodized.  So, we drive them to Auckland (2.5hrs each way) to Alert Anodising where they will put 25 micron hard black to protect them.  We had wanted marine grade but evidently there was a mix up. Rob assured us it would be fine and that this was still very good.

10 days later we make the drive back to Auckland to pick up our newly anodized rudder posts.  

The shafts look so sexy!  I am not sure why I think they look sexy with the anodizing, but I do!  We laid the new shaft next to the old shaft and what a difference.  The new shafts are about 27cm longer and weigh almost 1 kilo more than the older shafts.  Compare the damaged shaft to the new one on the right photo.

Now we are ready for the blades.  Stay tuned for part II of the Rudder Rebuild.

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occured during November 2023.  

Damaged Rudder Shaft with broken tines

An Utter Rudder Disaster

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We thoroughly enjoed our solitude at Minerva Reef but it was time to make a move for Tonga.  Our weather forecaster told us that a rather large weather system was coming and that we should leave for a more sheltered anchorage.  Why do you ask?  Well we were currently anchored at Minerva Reef which is not sheltered at all, there is no protection from the receeding reef that disappears twice a day at high tide.  We had a somewhat “decent” weather window to make the 2-2.5 day passage.  It is during this passage that we had an utter rudder disaster.

Weather Window

When we look at weather to make a passage we take into account several factors using 4 different weather models and a professional weather router.  We look at wind speed, wind direction, cape, rain, swell size, and swell direction.

During this particular weather window we had good winds, no cape, and no rain.  However, we did have big 3m seas coming from the rear quarter panel.  This sucks as seas can make your trip very uncomfortable.  But, we needed to leave for a protected anchorage so we took this window.

I should note here that the passage from New Zealand to Minerva had pretty rough seas as well.  During that 6 day passage we had 2.5-3.5m seas the entire time.  That is a lot of bashing on the boat for a long period.  But we made it to Minerva and all was ‘”fine.”

Passage: Minerva to Tonga

You probably read about this passage while we were actually underway as Matt was writing “live blogs.”  But to summarize, we had decent weather for the first 1.5 days.  The seas were big, 3m, but they came in long increments and were not too choppy.

However, after that we encountered messy, choppy seas that made it feel like we were inside a washer machine.  The boat was banging all over the place and it was very uncomfortable.

Auto is Failing

Around 9:30pm, Matt woke me to help him steer the boat.  What?  We have auto for that.  Auto Pilot is our automatic steering system which we rely on a lot during passages.  Consider it like “cruise control” in your car.

In big seas auto has a hard time steering the boat because the boat comes out of the water. With the big seas and strong winds the boat was wanting to head into the wind so Auto was having to constantly overcorrect by turning to port.  But at this time, Auto was going every which was and not holding course at all.  In fact, at one point, we were going backwards. This is when I took over hand steering as Matt adjusted the sails.

Matt and I worked on sail congifuration for 1.5 hours trying to figure out what was wrong with Auto.  We finally settled on no main, a small double reefed jib and the engine.  This was the only way to control steering and we still had 88nm (12hrs) to get to the channel in Tonga.

Keep in mind that it was pitch black outside, no moon, big seas, and the boat is moving  6-7kts.  Matt checked the engine rooms to see if everything was ok with the rudders, but you can only see the top portion, and that looked good.  You can’t see under the boat in these conditions.

We are missing what?

At dawn, we approached the Tonga channel.  The winds had calmed down to a respectable 17-18kts and the seas were down to 1.5m.  Matt went to the starboard sugar scoop and looked across to the port side and realized we were missing a rudder!  Are you freakin kidding me?

Nothing we can do until we drop the hook so we continued on to the anchorage where we needed to clear into the country.  Lucky for us, the officials allowed us to anchor outside the basin because we could not manuever around the small basin with only one rudder and limited steerage.  We picked the officials up in our dinghy, did the paperwork on the boat, and then returned them to shore.

While in Raitea, French Polynesia we removed both rudders.  This is what the rudder should look like:

Assessing the Damage

Once we cleared into the country we were allowed to jump in the water to evaluate the damage.  There are multiple parts to a rudder….

  • The shaft is about 6′ in length and goes up into the engine compartment and down below the boat.
  • Tines or Fingers:  There are 3 tines or fingers on the shaft below the boat.  They are supposed to be long where they are perpindicular to the shaft jetting out in front and behind the shaft.  They help support and enforce the blade.
  • Rudder blade made of fiberglass

This is what was left of our rudder:

As you can see from the above photo, we are missing the rudder blade completely and each of the 3 tines are damaged.  But the good news is that shaft is intact!

Humanity Restored

As we are motoring into the anchorage I am emailing people for help.  We met the owner of the one and only yard in Tonga (Vava’u The Boatyard) and we met the yard manager for Vuda Marina in Fiji during a conference in Auckland.  It pays to network.

We also posted our problem on our blog and the emails, texts, and calls came flooding in.  I cannot tell you how much love we felt during this difficult time.  We had cruisers from NZ, Fiji, Tonga, French Polynesia, and Cook Islands, asking us how they can help.  It was inspiring and amazing – thank you everyone.

Repair Options

We have a few options…

  1. Tonga: Vava’u The Boatyard is a 1-2 day sail from our current location.  We met the owner/manager at the conference and he has been of great assistance.  They can rebuild our rudder using our good working rudder as a mold.  The problem is that the yard is stretched thin and could not start work for 3 weeks and the entire project could take 6-8 weeks for a total of up to 11 weeks on the hard.  We only have a 4 week tourist visa.
  2. Fiji: Vuda Marina and South Pacific Fiberglass.  We met the manager of Vuda Marina at the same conference and he had some great advice.  He recommended two contractors to rebuild the rudder: South Pacific Fiberglass and Prasaads Marine.  Both companies provided feedback, but South Pacific Fiberglass was more specific about cost and turn around.  They can build the rudder in 10-14 days.  But they are in Fiji and we are a 4-5 day sail from there. (1-2 days to North Tonga, then 2-3 days from N. Tonga to Fiji).

6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon

3. New Zealand:  Try to follow along with this networking connection.  A fellow cruiser, Jef in NZ heard about our rudder loss and reached out to us.  Jef informed us that he replaced both of his rudders using Peter Palmer at Norsand and RH Precision in Whangarei.  

We met Peter, who is another cruiser, last season in Fiji.  Peter works part-time at Norsand in NZ which is the yard that will be hauling us out in Nov.2023.  He used to manage the yard before he decided he wanted to cruise with his family 6-months of the year.  We reached out to Peter and he said that there might be a spare rudder from Sel Citron, a Catana 52 in the yard.  So, Peter told us to contat Norsand and ask them to track down this rudder.

We met Sel Citron last season in Whangarei.  We reached out to him to ask about this rudder as well.  The rudder was replaced on Sel Citron before the new owner, Dan took over Sel Citron, but he gave us permission to take and use the old rudder.

And to our great joy, the yard found it.  Unfortunately it is not in great condition, but it is better than what we have which is nothing.  They sent the measurements of the shaft, tines, and rudder and we compared it to our rudder.

Unfortunately it is not an exact match and it is a different shape but it is completely workable.

The Plan

We measured our one good rudder and compared it to the measurements of Sel Citron’s rudder and it can work.  We asked Norsand Yard in NZ to look into shipping costs to get the rudder from NZ to Fiji.  Shipping items to Tonga is rumored to be extremely difficult, expensive, and time consuming.  We decided to have it shipped to Fiji where the resources are more plentiful.

We will use Sel Citron’s rudder to get us back to NZ and then we will either have two new rudders made in NZ or we will ship in two new rudders from Europe.

The yard miraculously found a cruiser (Andreas on Seven Seas) who was leaving Norsand bound for Fiji within a few days.  They loaded up our temporary rudder and delivered it to Fiji for us.  Andreas was headed to Musket Cove (and we were still in Vanua Balavu).  So we asked Andreas to give the rudder to our friend Chris on Sea Glub.

This is a huge favor, but know that curisers do this all the time for other cruisers.  In fact we are caring a generator, outboard, and spare parts for 4 other boats right now. So, it’s nice to know that we all pay it foward.

The Spare Rudder

We arrive to Musket Cove and pick up our “spare rudder” from our friend Chris.  As luck would have it, Peter (from Norsand) is here on his boat Camara.  Peter is a master fiberglass professional.  He came over and both he and Matt determined the shaft on the rudder is not long enough.  What we had hoped would be a plug and play situation now became surgery.

The top shaft (big aluminium post) is our current rudder shaft and it is about 4″ longer than the spare rudder post (making it so the holes don’t align).

We have to put the spare rudder in place to determine how much of the blade has to be removed in order to get the shaft in place.  Peter jumps in the water while Matt goes in the engine room.  Once the rudder is in place, Peter scores the blade to mark where he has to cut.  This will help in two ways. One it will allow us to push the shaft higher into the engine room (allowing us to use 3 of the 4 holes) and we can cut the top of the shaft to fit the curve of our boat.

Another blessing is that the rudder blade is shorter than our current blade, but it is wider.  So even when we cut the blade (making it smaller) it will still have the same surface space as our existing rudder.

Fun Fact:

Our rudder floats.  In order for us to get the rudder into place we have to put 40lbs wieghts onto it to sink it.

Altering The Spare to Fit

Another blessing: we are at Musket Cove where Peter knows the owner (we know Will, the owner, too, but not nearly as well as Peter does).  We are able to utilize his workshop to alter our spare rudder.

Peter marks the rudder indicating where he is going to cut the blade.  The top part of the blade (near the shaft) was nearly touching the bottom of our hull (which is not good).  So, he is cutting more off that end than the back end.

After the blade is cut he has to sand down the fiberglass on the sides so he can apply new fiberglass across the cut top.

The next day, the fiberglass has dried and he applies a fairing and barrier coat.  Then we have to hunt for anitfoul paint to seal it all up.  The cruising community is so generous to us as we are able to find it for free.  It doesn’t match anything but it works.  The right photo shows the newly completed and fitted rudder.

Peter brings the rudder back to Sugar Shack.  Matt adds the weights to sink it, added shims/spacers, and easily installed the rudder in less than 30 minutes.

We are officially a two rudder boat again.

How Does Sugar Shack Sail with one Rudder?

Because we are a catamaran, we have almost two of everything.  On the one hand it is good as it acts as a spare, but on the other hand it is bad as we have to buy and maintain two of everything.

But in the case of our missing rudder, the one working rudder got a true work out.  We sailed over 1,000nm on one rudder – how did we do it?  We had to learn.  A catamaran has to be evenly balanced and having one rudder caused the boat to constantly head up wind. 

Our auto pilot had to work very hard to keep the boat heading in the right direction.  We had to constantly depower the sails and deploy the dagger boards to help the boat hold a course.  And even then there was a 20-40 degree margin.  If our course was 220, we could head anywhere from 180-260 depending on the seas and the wind.  So, it took us awhile to figure out how to sail with one rudder and we hope we never have to use this newly learned skill again.

What’s Our Plan?

Thanks to Peter’s help we will be able to safely navigate from Fiji back to New Zealand.  This is already a challenging passage and one we did not want to make with one rudder.  So, now we can head back to NZ with confidence.

Once we are there, we had already planned to haul out at Norsand (where Peter works).  We have engaged RH Precision to remake our shafts and Peter will build us new blades.  We will replace both rudders.

It is sad that it takes a disaster to remind you just how amazing humans can be.  We are truly blessed and grateful for all of the help in the cruising community.  Especially Peter!

Our blog posts run 10-12 weeks behind actual live events.  This blog post occured mid-July on the passage from Minerva to Tonga.  Did you read about our adventures in Minerva Reef – click here.

The Land of Plenty: Tahiti

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Being in Tahiti can be a challenge.  It means boat projects, lots of errands, tons of walking, and hordes of people and shops.  It is a culture shock to be here after being in uninhabited islands with just the locals and a few other cruisers.  But it is a necessary “evil.”  I say “evil” only because we end up spending a lot of money, as we are surrounded by cruiser ships, tall buildings, loud noises, and dirty water.  I’m not ungrateful, this is a beautiful island and offers hundreds of thousands of people a reprise from everyday life. But for us, as cruisers, it is only a place to stock up on provisions, get boat parts, handle paperwork, and do boat work.

We anchored off of Marina Taina for the first two days which is directly across from the Intercontinental Hotel.  This was the same place we anchored last year several times and it was familiar.  Within the first 4 hours of our arrival we had 3 visitors from other cruisers.  A wonderful welcoming committee!

First Day Frenzy

On our first full day, we hit the ground running.  We stopped in to see our agents at Tahiti Crew.  Technically, we had not engaged them as our agents this year, but we had worked with them last year and they continue to be helpful.  We had hoped they could help us with our long-stay visa renewals.  Unfortunately, all they could do we offer us was advice and that advice was to wait until we received an approval email. 

Our friends Josh and Rachel on Agape came into the office as we were chatting with Tahiti Crew.  They too were looking for advice on their visa renewals.  So, we decided to go to the source, the Haute Commissionaire’s office.  We hopped on the bus and took the short 30-minute ride into town.  It was a total déjà vu as we had submitted our visa applications together back in September 2019 and here we are going together to see if they are approved in July 2020.

We patiently waited our turn as Josh and Rachel went first.  Laurie took their CDs back to her supervisor and asked them to wait.  I walked up to the window to “present” myself and Matt to her which is required once a year.  I tried my best to chat and be friendly and cheerful behind my mask and glass partition.  She took our CDs and was gone for about 20 minutes.  She came out with all 4 of our CDs stamped, approved and good until April 11, 2020!  What a huge relief!  We celebrated with a huge lunch and cold beer.

Official CDs with stamps

Official CDs with stamps

The renewal consists of a stamp on our CD’s.  The first stamp was for our first year and the and the second stamp is for our 2nd year.

One Down, More to Go

We swung by Marina Papeete (downtown) to see if we could find someone to help us secure a slip.  This marina does not take any reservations and it is first come first serve. So, we had to find someone who knew someone who was leaving so we could take their spot.  We talked to 4 different boats who promised to let us know when someone left.

Next, we walked 1.5 miles to the main harbor to find the Douanes (immigration).  They issue, among other things, a duty-free fuel certificate.  This little piece of paper saves us over 40% on diesel.  It has added up to several thousand dollars for us.  Ours had expired while we were in Gambier and we could only renew it in Tahiti.  So, off we went.  It is a really simple process and we walked out with our certificate 10-minutes later.

On our way back into town we stopped by Ace Hardware in search of a pressure washer.  The K’Archer we have sort of blew up and is no longer working.  We did not find any brands we recognized so we continued on back to the bus stop and home to Sugar Shack.

Duck, Duck, Goose

Early the next morning we heard a boat had let so we pulled up anchor, readied the boat for marina life (put out lines and fenders) and headed in.  Our friends on September AM helped us with our lines from shore and we snugly fit into a perfect spot in the marina.  Lucky us as another boat came in minutes after us looking for a spot.

We walked to the marina office to alert them of our arrival.  They were super nice.  The prices were “low season” rates the marina is technically under construction.  Which means there are no facilities like bathrooms, showers, or laundry.  No big deal, we have all that on the boat.  We ended up paying about $28 a night which is ridiculously cheap!  Most excellent for us! It’s good to be in Tahiti (I say that now).

Marina Papeete

Marina Papeete

No More Corner Anchoring

During an unfortunate anchoring event we had bent our stainless-steel anchor shaft.  It had happened when we anchored too close to a coral head in very deep water.  We could not see the bottom and raised the anchor.  Not an uncommon experience, but this time we had hooked a huge coral which literally bent the shaft.  We had been dealing with it for about a year and it was frustrating to get the anchor into the bow roller slot.  So, it was time to fix it.

You can’t really fix your anchor while at anchor.  So, lucky for us, we are at the marina.  Matt was able to remove the anchor shaft which was no easy feat.  We headed to the industrial area where we knew there was a machinist. 

After a 2.2 mile walk, carrying a 20+lb stainless-steel anchor shaft, we arrived at the shop.  The two workers were certainly surprised and perplexed.  It was fun to see Matt try to communicate with them, telling them what it is, how it is made, and how he wanted it fixed.  Once all the details were worked out we went to work.

In the 2nd and 3rd photo you can see how bent it is.

It is amazing what you can do when you have the right tools!  The three men set up the manual press and started cranking.  I would not have thought it would be so “easy” to bend steel – they did not look like superman to me 🙂  After about 15 minutes, we had a much straighter shaft.  They were so incredibly nice, they did not even charge us!  They did walk away with a giggle

House Batteries

We have been seeing some weird numbers come out of our battery bank.  These are relatively new house batteries (about 2-2.5 years young) and should be in excellent condition.  However, we have been seeing a drain each morning that was have never seen before.  Meaning they are lower than they expected based on our energy consumption. 

We have 1200 wats of solar panels that work great when we have sun.  On days when we don’t, we run the engines or our portable generator to charge the batteries.  We have not been able to diagnose the problem because we could not get them to a full charge.

Being at the marina allowed us to connect to shore power and get to that full charge mode.  Matt spent several hours testing and resetting the boat.  He found one coupler that was not tight as it should be, but nothing that should be causing problems.  Maybe it just needed to be at 100%?  Who knows.

Internetting

Of course there was lots of internetting to be done.  I needed to catch up with post for the blog, place orders to be brought to us by the amazing Konis clan and catch up on business.  Not always fun to be stuck in an internet cafe, but at least we have access and work can get done.

Refrigerator and Freon

Our fridge was not staying as cold as we liked.  Matt thought it needed a shot of freon, which we have, but we don’t have the tools to add the freon.  We called another cruiser, Mike Campbell  who works on refrigeration and ac. He was convinced we had a leak.  So, they spent an hour looking and guess what – no leak.  I guess that is good.  He shot us up with some freon and just like that we are back in business.

Provisions: Boat and People

Sugar Shack was getting empty and we needed to fill her up again with basic provisions.  In Tahiti, there are several big box stores (places where you can buy in bulk), regular grocery stores, marine stores, hardware stores, and more.  Tahiti is the land of plenty after all.  We purchased 3 cases of bottled beer for about $41/case and bought juice, soda, milk, tea from the box stores which are not shown in the photo below.

From the regular market we purchased the items below.  The photo does not include fresh produce, or any item purchased at the bulk stores.

We saw our friend Popo (the English teacher from Gambier) at the market.  She is on holiday in Tahiti.  She was so excited to me that she picked me up and twirled me around!

Medical and Dental Visits

The covid pandemic has prevented me from returning to the states to visit my doctors and dentist.  I decided to visit the doctors here in Tahiti and was pleasantly surprised.  I visited with Dr. Prevost who did a basic physical and labs for me.  I needed to run several tests (CBC and CMP) for my oncologist.  His visit was $68 and the labs were about $100.  

Then I went to see a gynecologist who did a full breast exam, pelvic exam, sonogram and pap smear for $77 with labs at $30.  Pretty reasonably priced and got the results emailed to me 😉 

A few cool Items

Our friend Mike on “Easy” carved a few coconuts for us and we made decorations of them

Sugar Shack in the crowd of boats at Marina Papeete

This post was written in July 2020.  Our blog posts are usually 6 to 7 weeks behind are true adventures.