Elf Rudder Gear

Description

Notes on Elf Rudder Gear

This was dreamt up by Iain Oughtred and myself on the basis of as many old pictures of
Norse and Shetland boats as we could find. The trick was to allow the gudgeons to adjust
to the varying angles of the pintles. This has been done – in our solution – by using
a gudgeon more like a doughnut than a tube, so that it can swivel in a vertical
plane as well as the horizontal one. If anyone can think of a better idea, please
let us know.
There are 2 snags:
– firstly the gudgeon makes a point contact on the pintle. This tends to mean that
a galvanised or steel option is unlikley to last very long in a marine environment.
So the gear is best done in bronze or stainless
– secondly there is a trade-off between the tightness of the gudgeons and the
amount of rudder movement available – current mock-ups indicate that a
rudder angle of +/- 35 degrees gives a reasonable compromise.
Anyway the scheme works as in the sketch.
The left hand one shows the normal position, with the upper rudder gudgeon on
the extension of the pintle. The lower rudder gudgeon is split at its front end,
and is mounted onto the pintle via a reduction in width near the top of the
pintle, and then slid down to its normal position. An “R” clip keeps at the
top of the pintle stops the rudder jumping off.
And when you want to come ashore, you reach back and bring the rudder up to the
upper pintle on the hull. This should give you a bit of steerage, whilst avoiding
damage to the rudder when you hit the beach/putty.

With this scheme, the cheeks of the rudder head will need to be extended
downwards by about 3″ because the upper strap is mounted lower on the
rudder than shown on the drawing. Alternatively you could shorten the cheeks
a bit, so the strap goes below them.