Monthly Archives: May 2012

Rudder bracket improvement

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The stock rudder bracket on my TRIAK is prone to some deformation when excessive force is applied to the foot steering. Since I want my boat to be expedition ready, I decided not to wait for a better rudder bracket from TRIAK but to augment my own with re-enforcing aluminum bars. The original rudder bracket is made out of aluminum so adding aluminum reinforcements would have the same thermal expansion.

I added a custom-cut bar to the top of the rudder bracket to keep the bracket from separating but also allowing full range of motion of the rudder. I also added two supporting bars to the sides of the rudder bracket to help prevent any bending at that point. To add some extra strength, I inserted a bronze bushing through the rudder hole and used a smaller bolt that could be tightened down all the way for the rudder pivot. The bushing is slightly longer than the width of the rudder so the rudder is free to freely pivot even though the bolt is tightened all the way down. These side bars are also held in place with counter-sunk bolts and epoxy.

These modifications should make the bracket much stronger than the original.

See the video below for some pictures of the manufacturing process.

making a wing bolt

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Since I sometimes put the boat together on a floating dock, a real risk is one of the necessary metal parts falling into the drink. If I lost one of these important parts a couple of days before a Watertribe event, I might not even make it to the beach.

I’ve been working to get spares for everything that could be lost or broken. This post is about the metal part that attaches the wing to the mail hull (the handle part if it is used to attach the ama to the wing). I found all the raw materials I needed at local hardware stores and West Marine. The video below shows how I made the part from the raw materials. I now have two spares in case I lose one or two.