Tiller Head
After all the work; keel, rigging and shaft seal, she was back in the water in St Helier . Great stuff. Although sitting in the cockpit whilst having a beer, the tiller didn’t feel right… It felt loose and unconnected. It transpired that the rudder head was not seated correctly and the top nut for the bronze tiller head was not fully tightened. Uh oh.
After removing the nut, it appeared cross threaded an an in poor condition with a crack almost completely through the longitudinal. Yes, there’s an inspector on board, inspecting his nuts!
Nut Cracked, multiple places. Threads!
We had hoped to leave in a day or two but the plot was about to thicken. When asking around for a local engineering firm in the chandlers, a chap at the counter told me I needed Roger at ACE engineering. The message was, “he’s good quality, fast but not cheap.”- well, we all know you can’t have all three. Roger was fantastic although he treated me like my Dad would, which is not such a bad thing.
After the twenty minute walk to his shop with the cracked nut, he gave one look at the nut and said ‘looks like 3/8”’ and gave me a new nut to try. I asked him how much, “nothing” he said. I returned 40 minutes later with the nut and explained it didn’t fit. Curious, he gave me a new nut, I forget which size. This continued once more for a total of three visits before he became a little frustrated with me. He grabbed some tools threw them in a bucket and said right where’s your car? “We don’t have a car…” It was at that point Roger came into his own. Greasy overalls and all he came down to SANITY he had a look over her, took 30 seconds to run a tap over the threads and said “we could make you a bronze one, with a recess for the shaft shoulder”. Yes thank you please!
The shiny new top nut isn’t my last concern as the bronze tiller head has some casting defects on the base. As to the integrity I am not sure. But I cannot find any reference to tapered rudder shafts or images of similar arrangements. If anyone knows anything about this style or where we could get a replacement or someone who could / would fabricate one, please let us know- I’d sleep a lot better!