It is well documented throughout the Drascombe fraternity that there is a common issue with leaks and poor rudder stock location in the existing guide plates. This location is between the face of the hull gel coat and the back of the Iroko keel band. In effect sandwiched between them both and hidden; to make matters worst they were screwed into the glass fibre hull with 4 screws. It doesn’t take much lowering and lifting of the rudder assembly to weaken these screw placements with the consequence of water ingress into the stern Lazarette.
The original MK1 hulls had these external guide plates, but they then reverted to the square bronze guide plates. At JLJ I have commissioned these guide plates to be made out of stainless steel, A4 not polished 316. They are 5 mm thick and on our keel bands we machine then down 3 mm below the surface of the keel band. At this aft position it is not an area of the keel that is subject to great wear from grounding.
You will note that this plate in the photograph is machined with a 20 mm wide slot to take the so called ‘flip-up rudder blade’, although I have never understood this flip up concept!
This external rudder guide plate can be supplied for your own fitting
£73.00
