Neither Robi's system or the replacement for the McKenzie setup are the AHPC setup.

I did see the setup that is going onto the EU Blades; actually a Taipan 4.9 sailor overhere bought these as a replacement for his older stype alu AHPC setup. I held and looked at the stock then once and they seemed pretty well done. This Taipan sailor has been sailing with them for a while now and is very content with them. I'm not sure wether the same setup is going onto the US blades.





Certainly not. I'm told that Robi's system includes a tube being laminated into the stern section. Probably to take a lock down line. This is a source of concern (leaks ?) and it is too expensive for production hulls. When done right it will be a fine system but from a economic point of view it is not attractive. And lets face it, the builder needs to earn a profit on these boats and we, the buyers, are not really willing to pay much more.

Wouter

Been trying to figure out the Color fonts on the forum for a long time, was just playing with effects. Wanted to set it apart from the rest of the real message, since it was sort of a tongue in cheek left handed joke.
I did not mean to offend nor bring trouble aboard, the tension in some of the posts just seemed to have a certain flavor reminicent of times best remembered as how not to behave . . .
Apologies to those who feel they need one, and Congratulations to those of your who saw the humor in it.

I suddenly feel very special as an owner of jen-you-eyen AHPC carbon rudder stocks. ...had no idea they were anything special...

Well, it sounds like you had better hide them!

I think it's the inherent design that is faulty.
With the all or nothing system, if the water is any shallower then Max rudder draft then, without question you loose the steering and control of the boat.

Great pics thanks!
So this system is adjustable?
I'd like to see how the bungee is tied in do you have any more pics?
I may buy a Taipan next week if I can get the rudder system sorted.

[quote
I may buy a Taipan next week if I can get the rudder system sorted.
[/quote]
Where are you located that you may buy a Taipan next week? Somewhere near SE USA would be tres cool!

You are talking about upper leg (or less) deep water here ! You really don't want to be sailing here.

When you run into such shallow water then the line system will disengage fully as well and you'll have exactly the same issues with respect to steerage.

I sailed with the line and kick-up cleat system for several years when I still was a cat sailing instructor and it is not my personal opinion that I was better off then in any way. As soon as you picked up speed the rudders would float up anyway.

And the trick with bungees pulling the boards down can be had with both systems. However these are also a good way to rid your sterns of your boat in a surf.

Wouter

With your “on off only” system you can’t operate the boat in water shallower then max. draft of the rudder so unless you are leaving from a dock you are at a major disadvantage over an adjustable design.

I leave from the beach and at low tide it’s 2 feet deep for a good 500 meters
to a drop off. No BFD.

With your system you’ll need to walk all the way out there and back likely damaging the reef as you go.

On the return your rudders will disengage all right but you’ll be without the helm and that’s outright dangerous oxymoron in my opinion.

I'd like to see more pics of the solution.. Thanks

Flying cat,

Were I sail I ALWAYS have to go out through a surf encountering about 3 sandbars before the bottom drop to a comfortable 2 to 3 mtr (and more) deepness.

At worse tide I also have to sail through a few hundred meters of shallow water. More often then not with some breaking surf on top of that. We do have easy days but I can count them on on hand per season.

I can assure you that I'm by no means a dock launcher.

I found that the conditions I'm sailing in, and Dutch conditions in general, are grossly underestimated by foreign sailors. I don't exactly understand why.






So people keep telling me. However, based on my personal experiences, this doesn't seem to be the case. I'm also of the generation that learned the sail any sailboat by the sails alone. No sailor overhere can use their rudders for a sizeable portion of hte road to deeper water while traversing the breaking surf. No hobie system, no nacra system, no system period allows you to partially set a rudder in our conditions. Hold down systems with a bungee cord pressing the tip of the rudder board to the ground are quickly disgarded overhere as in our surf condition you WILL be thrown (pushed) back by the surf. If your rudder is tounching the ground than the boat will ride up on its rudder and cause major damage to your sterns or break your rudders.

The motto in our surf is "Speed is everything !" . Pretty much we try to build up enough speed so that we punch through each (breaking) wave in the surf without coming to a full stop. All of us do this without locking down out rudders. We set out jibs relatively tight and with a very open mainsail. (alot of mainsail twist and the main traveller far out) We round p by sheeting in the main and we bear off by sheeting it out again. Pretty much all race catamarans are setup with some weather helm so the boats are balanced with a tight jib and a relatively open mainsail. We hold on to our tiller bars to engage the rudders when absolutely needed, but we steer mostly with sheeting our mainsail. Please note that we are often sailing with several meters a second like this. That is quite fast. Sailors of boarded boats set at least some 15 to 20 cm board as soon as they can. Without it a boarded cat is very difficult to put through the surf as it slides away to lee so much.


I trying to express that I've sailed for about 3 years with the line system as depicted (Ricks) on a KL18 Warp when I was a sailing instructor on this Dutch coastline. The KL18 was a skeg boat and these are more easy to sail through the surf than a boarded cat with round keellines. I can really say that I didn't notice any help from this system when going through the surf. The skegs, yes, rudder setup, not really. I did notice that the bloody hold down lines where always slipping through those ronstan cleats. We keep all our boats on the beach during the summer time and these lines become hard and smooth on the outside pretty fast. After several weeks of being out there the V-cleat would be insufficient to hold down the rudder when sailing at speed. You would notice this because the helm would get progressively sluggish and heavy when sailing. Eventually I would just park the boat out side of the surf, pull the rudders really tight, cleat the line and then tie it off behind the cleat really tight as well. The line would not slip anymore (nor would the rudders kick-up !) but I still would get some sluggisnes in the steering because the line would stretch a little bit with time. From my perspective you get a few bad aspects for hardly any good aspects in the surf. I also sailed the Cirrus Ocean (Recreational version of the Cirrus F18) with a similar system when I was an intructor. Same experiences there although the Cirrus system was better implemented. It also used those ronstan kick-up V-cleats.




What does BFD mean ?





Luckily we don't have any reefs or rocks formations at our shore line, however I have never walked my boat in our out in any conditions except total windlessness. And even then I most swam or peddled it in.

It may be wise to not make any assumptions in these cases. As far as I can tell my conditions pretty much mirror yours with a few minor differences like having sandbars instead coral reefs.





Please read my other posts on this topic more throrougly. I can do something with my rudder setup that can not be done with many others. I actually have far better garantee of steerage then any nacra/hobie or comparable system without risking my damage. Also the kick-up force with the rod engaged is alot more dependable than what I experienced with line systems. I found that line systems and this ronstan kick-up cleat can require quite alot of force before disengaging due to friction in the system and the build up of salt and dirt in the kick-upcleat. My rod system setup really doesn't have this problem.

Really, I have had experiences with several implementations of both systems and the post 2003 AHPC setup of the rod system is really better then any hold-down-line system with kick-up cleat I ever experienced. Without a doubt. With respect to shallow water and surf near the beach. Learn to sail and steer your boat without depending on your rudders much. No matter which lock-down system you use steerage is always slow and heavy when the rudders aren't fully down. Steering by using your sails effectively is both faster and more dependable. Learn to sail like that. Bungees to hold down your rudders so they are scrapping the bottom is in my experience a receipy for damage and worn down tips. And it won't give you the steerage you are looking for most of the way any way.

Wouter



I'd like to see more pics of the solution.. Thanks

Thanks for the information Walter I always enjoy your posts.

Just to clarified the new blade system works poorly as does everything pre 2003. How many new production boats is that anyway before they made the essential improvements?

The fellow with the new blade has to jury rig his new boat because the rudder system is less then adequate? That must be a major disappointment. How did it happen that they put these into mass production like this?

Thanks for the advice..

Does anyone use lift up daggerboard rudders like many skiffs and dinghies. I've just broken one of my old blades (it is becoming a habit unfortunately) and want to replace the old swing type rudders and rudder boxes with a new system that works.

Stealth marine uses a lift up rudderboard. It has T-foils as well.

go to www.stealthmarine.co.uk

There are also some pics of their new rudderboxes on this forum. But you will have to "search" for them

Wouter

Here's the thread:

2006 Stealth F16

And here's those sexy new rudders:

Additional benefit is that you can steer the boat when it is upside down.

Ah, but the carbon mast means they don't go upsidedown!

(edit cos of grammar catastrophe...)

Speaking of rudder systems...How much "kick-in" angle should the tillers have off the hull centreline to mimic ackerman steering (where outside rudder in a turn is angled less than the inside rudder)? My old system seemed very heavy and I was wondering if anyone had a rule of thumb for this design aspect...

It is always good to get the most recent information from the origin source:
The way the Dotan kick up rudder works

I use the Dotan system on our XCat, one thing I realy like is that if you sail with one rudder up and one down, you just lift and lower the crossbar in the centre and it puts the up rudder down and the down rudder up! Do the other systems do that?



Gareth

I don't want to put a damper on things here, but once again the Dotans were tried on a new design (G-cat F16) and the system broke and was reported to be too flexible to work well on a spinnaker catamaran. I seem to remember similar reports from the time some 18HT's were using them. Although indeed some like this setup.

Wouter