BYYB Forums

I am finishing my rudder assembly for my weekender.  I will be buying pintels and gudgeons.  Hard to swallow the $65 cost for hardware, but boy it looks clean.  Anyway, I thought, what is the use of having convenient pintels and gudgeons if you have disconnect the rope and stearing mechanism in the transom?  Has anyone come up with a quick disconnect option for the tiller/rope assembly?  I am sure once I start installing it, I will come up with something, but I figured I'd ask first.

On my rudder, I have a small steel mending plate screwed to the tiller head.  The screws could be replaced with a some sort of pin arrangement.

The easy answer is switch to a tiller steering system.... Then removal is no problem and the lazzerete becomes storage.

My solution is to disconnect tiller from rudder box, not from the steering gears.
In this way you don't modify lines tension that is set once forever (?) and operate outside the hull.
My tiller is connected by 2 removable bolts to the rudder box, between side cheeks, then everything remain the same, just only modify the shape of the slot in the transom to permit you to lift up the tiller when (unbolted) you are going to put/take off the box. I did this cutting in the upper edge a vertical opening large as the tiller and high enough to ensure the pintels/gudgeons stroke.

I decided for it in order to save working space in my garage (see in my album ...), but I admit sincerely that there is no other reason to do it, once the Weekender is ready and outside, these few cm you have saved are not absolutely relevant, you will still find easier to attach the box to the boat and then the rudder blade to the box and for trailering you will remove the blade only.
Consider also defects: you have a wider slot in the transom and  you could risk to lose the rudder box that in some evenience could disengage and be free to come up.

Gianluigi

Thanks for replies.

Yep...my motivation for removable rudder assembly is to fit boat in garage, but I guess once the bow sprit is on, it won't fit in the garage anyway...unless there is a way to make a removable bowsprit too....

I thought of doing the tiller thing, but unfortunately, I think the cock pit is too small as it is.

Once again, I think I tried outsmarting the plans and I always end up reverting back to the original specs.  Its cool though.

(01-29-2010, 07:56 AM)Jeff Rostoni link Wrote: [ -> ]...my motivation for removable rudder assembly is to fit boat in garage, but I guess once the bow sprit is on, it won't fit in the garage anyway...unless there is a way to make a removable bowsprit too....

Jeff, don't quit too soon. A removable bowsprit is much easier to do than a removable rudder box. As you can see in my album,my bowsprit is so, even if I don't think I will disassemble it frequently. If you think to take it off every sailing session, you can tight bolts with knobs/handles instead of with nuts.

Gianluigi 

Cool.  I will check it out.  How do I access your photoalbum? 

I am here in Michigan.  I know a couple Iafrate folk.  I am a fellow Paison myself.

(01-29-2010, 07:56 AM)Jeff Rostoni link Wrote: [ -> ]...unless there is a way to make a removable bowsprit too....

There's no reason to glue the bowsprit into place and I don't believe the trailboards (which I didn't install) fasten to it.  1 bolt and it slides in and out.

Greetings Jeff,

Ok,  I gotta ask...  Why won't the Weekender fit in the Garage?

The boat is only 16 ft on deck, and 19 ft overall.  A standard size garage used to be 25x25, now they are more frequently 22x22.  The smallest I have ever been in was a 11x20 single stall.

If the problem is that the Weekender plus the trailer won't fit, then you have a different problem.  You might be able to slide the bunks, wheels, and winch stand forwards on the frame to shorten the whole trailer.  Otherwise, there are several manufacturers who sell trailers with telescoping or folding tongues to solve this specific problem.  If you already have a trailer, then you might be able to cut off the front part of the tongue and bolt on an after-market folding tongue ...



Cheers,
Tom.

(01-29-2010, 11:08 AM)Jeff Rostoni link Wrote: [ -> ]Cool.  I will check it out.  How do I access your photoalbum? 

I am here in Michigan.  I know a couple Iafrate folk.  I am a fellow Paison myself.

Jeff,
to get photo album you can click to "gallery" and then "user galleries" or you can go directly to: http://byyb.org/gallery/index.php?cat=10817.

I'm happy that you knew a couple of "Iafrate" in Michigan, because in Italy I met only once one that was not a relative of mine. Here it is a very rare family name and sound so unusual that I have to repeat it always many time. I suppose that many "Iafrate" moved abroad in past centuries  and now they are more popular in America than in Italy.

If someone is interested in, there is a free service that from telephone books counts family names in Italy and USA and reports their density in a map, just only fill the box "cognome" (=family name) and enter.
www.gens.labo.net/it/cognomi/
There are other utilities and services, but fluency in written Italian is necessary.

Gianluigi