DRAGONFLY Trimarans User Forum

Problems at the helm.
I was off the coast of Corsica, by night, with waves of 1.5 meters, and wind at 20 knots, suddenly the rudder blade raised, i controlled the sheet, but is set to strangle sheets, the pin steel.inserted in the rudder. was broke-
Luckily I managed to use the outboard as rudder and i sheltered in a bay.
why did it happen?
screws that hold the steel plate below the hull are soft, the plate was lowered and the cheeks of the rudder left the headquarters of the post.
Furthermore, the pin did not have none of the terminals and the axis of the rudder has a great game.
your rudder has never given problems?
I dont know how to make the system more reliable, I would not repet this experience.
Cautions for I pierced the top blade so you can insert a pin and hold it down, I,m not convinced by the safety of three screws that hold the whole system.
There are serveral dragon fly with this sistem no one has this problme ?

Roby;- It is a little difficult to understand your rudder problem exactly due to the translation into English.

I think that you say the screws holding the bottom rudder bearing were 'soft'. By that I assume that the bottom rudder bracket worked loose from the hull (is held by two screws), and that the bottom of the rudder cheeks assembly was able to come off the bottom pintle?

If that is so, your boat might have has the same problem as mine. Please see earlier post for full details. On my boat, the end of the bracket had not been bent to the correct angle at the factory;- the part with the pintle in in should be at right angles to the pivot line of the rudder. Mine had not been bent downwards enough, so every time you turned the rudder, you were 'working' the bracket up and down, loosening the screws in the hull, and causing a leak. It was the leaking in the rear compartment that made me spot the problem.

If I had not identified the problem, I suppose that the bottom bracket could have worked loose enough to 'let go' of the rudder assembly.

Do you think that is what might have happened, or am I misunderstanding your problem?

Well done to have coped in those circumstances!

I was in a race in June around Lundy Island;- huge seas as we tacked around the south west corner in overfalls, so had to time tack carefully. Helm suddenly very heavy, and very frightening because of the sea conditions. Couldn't work out what was up. Then noticed that because I had not tucked the rudder downhaul line neatly down its' hole, I had trod on the bight of rudder line on the cockpit floor whilst tacking, releasing the downhaul, and allowing the rudder to kick up. Pulled it back down, and all was OK. I was very lucky not to have broken something with the huge loads that I was feeling on the tiller, and it is a credit to Quornings that the rudder assembly took those unfair strains without failing.