Steering
2005

The rudder shaft is a solid piece of 2" stainless steel. I had one end machine tapered and the other end was milled to accept a large socket that will be part of the emergency steering system. Several stainless flanges were welded onto the bottom end to support the foam rudder blade.

The rudder bearings (white) were machined out of a piece of 3.5" UHMW to make a tight fit around the shaft. and I used that shaft here to line up the two sections of bearing while I glassed them to the hull, the core was removed earlier and replaced with solid glass. After the glass had set up the plywood flanges were added for additional strength.