I have older style castings on my 84 H18.
My rudder adjustments are fully extended on each end of my tiller crossbar and rudders are still toe'd in about 1/2"-3/4". I understand a little toe is not a bad thing. It just makes no sense to me why even when the adjusters are fully extended the rudders are still toed.
One tiller arm is angled in about 3/4" of an inch from casting to tip of arm. The other is straight as an arrow. I am wondering if the cross bar I have is for the newer system? The one I have is 75" does anyone know if the older system had a longer crossbar?
David
'84 Hobie 18 SE
Interesting both my tiller arms are angled and there is a definite port and starboard. The angled one, you have angled inward? You may need to go looking for a tiller arm? I switched over to H20 tiller connector system, big improvement over stock setup. I would have to measure my cross bar, not sure how long it it. My boat is a 1978 H18 in pretty good shape for its age. Ryan
Edited by rssailor on Jun 18, 2011 - 07:34 PM.
Rssailor, thanks for the reply, yes the angled arm is angled inward. I would like to go to the H20 connector but I have to get this figured out due to the amount of adjustment required with my current equipment.
Are your tillers and castings original equipement with your 18? I have heard that the older castings (like ours) had very little, if any, angle.
David
'84 Hobie 18 SE
I measured my old style crossbar at 75". this is only the crossbar and not the adjusters. The old style
arms should both be angled inward. I believe the new style arms are straight. I think that maybe you
have mismatched parts.
H18m
p16
Venture15
Hey thanks for checking this pk. I must have mismatched parts. Today we were sailing in decent wind and my son was at the helm. His arm was worn out holding the tiller. We noticed that one of the tiller adjusters had slipped all the way in. Misaligning the rudders badly. I will call Murrays (thanks for the suggestion in the Hobie forum).
I'll have to see if the bent tiller arms will fit the castings I have. This is really getting old......
David
'84 Hobie 18 SE
Some dummy replaced your angled tiller arm with a straight one. The tiller arms are SUPPOSED to be angled inward so they have the Ackerman angle: this means the rudders then have a different radius of turning when tacking, allowing very fast tacks. You should be holding the tiller extension with 2 fingers. The Hobie tubing is always the same diameter to fit all castings: H16 and 18 angled tiller arms are very similar.
Be sure the rudders are canted under the boat properly, and locking down properly, for correct and effortless steering.
sailinagin wrote:
I'll have to see if the bent tiller arms will fit the castings I have. This is really getting old......
Hey sailinagin,
Like dacarls says, you do have mixed parts. I didn't realize it, but the new style rudder castings (with the plastic cams) also switched to a straight tiller tube. See parts diagram
http://2010.archive.hobiecat.com/support/pdfs/PARTS_18.pdf
Since the new style still has ackerman, the inward angle must be built into the upper casting.
You have the old style rudder castings with one new style tiller tube.So your rudders can never be parallel. Sorry I didn't notice that when I saw your boat. Fortunately there are probably a lot of old style tiller tubes around since so many of the old castings have broken.
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Damon Linkous
Thanks for this post. I have the exact same problem. early 80s H 18 with tiller crossbar fully extended and when in nice wind the rudder takes a monster grip and pull it and keep it aligned. I will check the length of the tiller crossbar and try to better align the rudders. Question...is it better to toe the rudders inward slightly or keep them as parallel as possible?
Toed in but only about 1/4". As soon as I get a chance I am going to post pics. If you are having trouble with weather or lee helm you may need to check the rudder rake. I dont think the alignment pulls on the tiller.
I have been told by Matt Miller with Hobie to simply bend the tiller arms in so that I dont have to put the extensions out all the way. Havent had the guts yet to do it because I dont want to crimp the tubular arms just before our annual beach trip!
David
'84 Hobie 18 SE
Yeah, I believe your right on. Thanks sailinagin...need more rudder rake. π The toe is about right with the tiller crossbar fully extended. I found a great article on rudder and sail rake tonight. Check it out...
I will probably fill and redrill my rudders to get some rake added. Tried to upload pictures...but cant figure out how π
mh_jenkins wrote: I found a great article on rudder and sail rake tonight. Check it out...
I don't know if that site has permission from Bill Mattson of On The Wire fame to publish that whole article. I noticed the site even is hotlinking the images from Bill's archive site.
All of the On The Wire articles are here at TheBeachcats.com, here is the farewell message from Bill Mattson passing the content onto TheBeachcats.com. There is also a link in the top navigation tabs to the whole archive.
The weather helm article is at
http://www.thebeachcats.com/news/15/about-weather-helm/
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Damon Linkous