We were just leaving for an overnighter the other day when my rudder contacted a shallow spot in our lagoon entrance.
I was halfway expecting it to happen as the channel is getting silted up, but was very surprised that I heard a bang and the rudder line had hardly even tensed up and had NOT released!
What had happened was the pin in the small shackle which holds the ss line to the rudder eye had crevice corrosion on the threads, and it broke.
We had to return to our dock with the rudder pointing almost straight back with no way to pull it back down.
Needless to say, the steering was difficult.
After inspecting the tube exit to the rudder, I realized that the stainless line which was shackled to the rudder had jumped back up the tube too far to reach.
Efforts to retrieve it with a hook fashioned from a coat hangar were fruitless, so it became necessary to remove the block in the cockpit aft bulkhead and remove the whole assembly.
It was doable, but it involved a thin blade to cut the bedding compound on the cockpit's block assembly. Not fun.
We managed to finish the repair in a couple of hours, but the whole thing could have been avoided if I had replaced the shackle as a matter of routine maintenance.
After all, it was 17 years old and had been sitting in salt water for its entire life.
It's an easy replacement... Do it now!
Replace your rudder downhaul shackle !
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