Hanging the Rudder

We are for a few days up North.  Time to hang the rudder.

First issue was to select the necessary hardware.  As the Peapod is not a "classic" I don't want to use bronze but will stick to stainless steel.  Much cheaper.

The Peapod is a double ender and most available hardware is for the use on transoms. 

After some research and thinking I bought two sets of rudder hardware for the Optimist dinghy. 

For two of the gudgeons the pintles had to be removed.
A kind of gender change from male to female.......
Yesterday I visited my brother who has the equipment and the skills to perform this surgery.  He is more the metal type of guy.

All gudgeons had to be bend to fit the rudder and the stem.

As the stem is curved it takes some thinking to aline the pins.  If they would follow the line of the stem the rudder could not turn.

I used a 6 mm beech rod to aline the gudgeons at the stem. In the end this method turned out quite well.


After that the hanging of the rudder itself was relatively easy. 

The tiller is a bit close to the top of the stem  but it turns well.  If necessary a few millimeters can be removed from the stem.


In the upper pintle a hole is drilled to put in a cotter ring to block the rudder.

Today I also bought the lines for rigging the boat.

The spars are fully in Deks2 but are still back home. On the next trip up north I will try to get them in or on top of the car. The big question will be: does the mast fit in the masthole in the fore deck. I could not do a test fit so let's wait and see.