Catalina 30- removing rudder for service

[narrowpath]

Hi! I'm in the yard now and want to drop my rudder to check the ridder post. Has anyone had experience doing this? I have a tiller and it appears to be simple enough to pull the top off and let it down with the help of friends, but is there anything that will hold it up from coming out? Any info and possible pics would be most helpful! Thanks! Rich on Narrow Path

[svwhirlwind]

Rich,

I believe that the length of the rudder post will require you to dig a hole under the rudder or have the boat very high on its supports and stands. I've encountered this problem on my C27, and looking at my C30 I can't see any differance.

Mike
svWhirlwind
C30 #3136

[duffer1960]

I dropped the rudder on my C-38 with no problem. I think the hardest part was digging the hole. Because I have wheel steering, I had to remove the steering quadrant first, which was only 4 bolts. Then remove the cap and she drops out. I actually used the jack from my minivan to lower it down. I was able to do it myself with no other help. I raised the jack almost as tall as possible then sat it on top of stacked pieces of wood and cinder blocks to get the total height I needed then raised it the rest of the wy up to lift the rudder high enough to remove the cap. I then lowered it almost as far as the jack would go, propped up the rudder with some other wood blocks and lowered the jack the rest of the way, removed the blocks from under the jack, raised the jack almost all of the way up, added blocks back under, raised the rudder slightly, removed the blocks I had placed under the rudder, and lowered away again. I repeated this process until it was out. (It's a lot easier than it sounds). I just reversed the process to get it back in.

[Hm2michaud]

I have #2850 a 1982 catalina 30. Two years ago I replaced the rudder do to internal rusting of the post. I do have a wheel so there was a quadrent to attach the cables for the wheel. On the tiller it should be fairly simple I you can loosen the hardware. You do need to dig about a 12 inch depression under the rudder. I blocked it from below, diassembled the hardware and then with two strong people lowered it from the boat. It is a ood idea to repack the rudder stuffing box acessable from the stern locker or the panel in the aft berth. Good Luck!