Rudders and Tillers

Rudders

 The rudders were some of the first parts cut out of plywood and then glued together. And the some of the last parts to be finished and mounted to the hulls.

The rudders stayed in this shape for years.

Finally they were mounted on the hulls in January 2014 and in April 2014 (port). The simplicity of the rudder hinges made from rope caught a lot of attention from the frequent visitors passing by at the construction site.

Tillers

I really wondered whether we could get the bent shape of the tiller without breaking the wood. When we had built Lemony several of the battens had broken. But it bending the wood turned out to be easy. Anohter problem was that you can’t buy full sized wood here. You buy a batten, say 1″x 2″, but that is the measurement after the saw mill. Then they plane at least two edges so that in fact the actual measurement is smaller, e.g. 3/4″ x 1.3/4″. Where I come from this would be considered cheating, but that’s how it is here and there is nothing once can do about it. The alternative would be to buy oversized wood and plane it to the final dimensions, a lot of planing to do. So we decided to use undersized wood and strengthen it with 3 layers of fiberglass to compensate for the lower strength.

The basic construction

The port tiller, glued together, the end was hold down by steel weights…

…some hours to mend…

..and then they actually stayed in shape. Almost a miracle.

Reinforcements

To be continued…