Mazuran's new rudders have received their new handle cutouts, and now are ready for fitting in the drum system - these have been made with precision. There are many many hours involved in making a set of these but I have seen how smooth they run and have great excitement to see them in action in the water. Handles are cut out for easy retraction of the blades. At the top of each rudder there is a carbon tube attached which locks into the slots of the rudder case stopping it from falling down.
The slots in the top of the rudder case are to position the rudder fore and aft which enables you to balance the rudder to reduce load on the helm. Once this is determined (the boat's happy medium position) this then can be a more permanent arrangement. Raking it fore and aft alters the lead on the rudder from 25% back to 13% - 18% is the most common so this gives us a nice range to work with.
The hole you can see in the photo below is for the emergency tillers - there are two holes. One on either side of the rudder case which go right through the drum.
These are more like sculptural artwork and really should be on display rather than concealed under a hatch. Understanding each integral piece of this system is so crucial for all the stages to come together and work to give us a perfectly balanced helm. I certainly hope it does!
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