Has thethe wheel design been discussed in Hot Liquid thread?

[Judders]

I only have tiller steering anyway, so I should shut up I guess.

Me too. Mind you, it broke once on my Feeling.

I've often marvelled at people's keeness to have wheels on small boats, especially underpowered ones. I've always assumed it was a desire to feel like they had a bigger boat but it strikes me as daft, especially on budget boats, to have a relatively complicated item of gear that can break in many different places when there is a simpler more reliable solution that actually offers a better end result, but each to there own.

I have some difficulty with the concept that a wheel which was bent by human impact, could not have been easily bent back out of the way by use of a decent rope, a snatch block and one of the big winches onboard.

Agreed. And a softer wheel is both better for the person landing on it and for the guy repairing it, which once the lifeboatman was onboard appears to have been what happened on Liquid Vortex.

 

[fireball]

All the spot welds at the hub on my Lewmar wheel broke.
Lewmars replaced the wheel and stated they had a defective batch.
This is going back about 4 years.

Is that welded to the outside of the hub or is it a twopart hub with the spokes going inside?
Mine is the latter and I believe that the spot welds are not a structural part of the design.

 

[Judders]

All the spot welds at the hub on my Lewmar wheel broke.
Lewmars replaced the wheel and stated they had a defective batch.
This is going back about 4 years.

Was there ever a recall?

 

[jimi]

Is that welded to the outside of the hub or is it a twopart hub with the spokes going inside?
Mine is the latter and I believe that the spot welds are not a structural part of the design.

Ditto

 

[fireball]

fireball..ok fair enough ive only done about 20,000 miles + on them so prehaps im wrong sorry to be a pain

Don't try flinging "miles" around ... I've not added up mine ...

I've driven over 20k miles in my car - doesn't make me an expert on the structural design though ...

I appreciate the warning - and yes - quite like that we should all take time to carefully check out our kit - knowing specific areas to check is worthwhile - hence I will take a look at the emergency tiller ... the wheel however, is not something of concern at this time.

 

[Bav34]

The spokes of my wheel are held in a substantial clamp.

I fail to understand how a weld could fail and even if it did why it should make my helm u/s.

 

[rib]

no but you should know whats good or bad about it,sorry about the miles thing it annoyes me too and thats only on bavs lol.thank you for your answer and i too am not to proud to accept a bit of sensible advise from anybody.geez it will only take 3 secs to look next time down. good day to you sir

 

[rib]

well bav thats a well beefed up wheel you have there.not the norm i belive,well it was,nt when i sailed bavs and it would take some of the flexing out putting less strain on the hub where I HAVE SEEN PERSONALLY SOME BREAK..i do not make stories up to get attention

 

[Blue5]

Lewmar wheels are held on with a locking nut that takes a standard winch handle. The wheel is on a keyed taper on the shaft. The plastic nut just sets the drag on the wheel.

And jolly good they are too, at least when SWMBO was thrown against ours she broke a rib but the wheel was not damaged.......

 

[jimi]

I did have my wheel off and had a good long look at the construction before coming to the conclusion that the small spot welds were merely placeholding. Of more concern to me was that the entire steering relied on a small grubscrew being in place to retain the chain wheel.

 

[Talulah]

Is that welded to the outside of the hub or is it a twopart hub with the spokes going inside?
Mine is the latter and I believe that the spot welds are not a structural part of the design.

Two part hub. Spokes going in side.
You could still use the wheel as the spokes were still held in the hub but is was very very wobbly. i.e. The rim would move fore and aft about 150mm and you could rotate the rim +- 30 degrees before the spokes then locked against the hub.
I don't know of a recall.

 

[Boomshanka]

And jolly good they are too, at least when SWMBO was thrown against ours she broke a rib but the wheel was not damaged.......

Do these wheels not come with airbags as standard?

 

[Bav34]

well bav thats a well beefed up wheel you have there.

Standard non-beefed up 2001 boat.

 

[fireball]

Do these wheels not come with airbags as standard?

Yes - but the airbags are normally found below decks doing the navigation ...

 

[jordanbasset]

well ive seen 6 bav wheels break,

With the risk of prolonging this you are saying you have had 6 wheels break on Bavarias because the welding was not strong enough where the spokes meet the wheel. This is in 20,000 miles, so roughly every 3,400 miles one breaks.

The wheel on the Bavaria is a lewmar and I believe this is common to many other boats. If this is happening so regularly there must be hundreds if not thousands of such incidents, I am surprised we have not heard more about this major safety problem.
I am aware of a small number of incidents involving a faulty batch of lewmar wheels, perhaps you were unlucky and all yours came from this batch.

 

[Judders]

Are these spokes continuous accross the diameter of the wheel with a weld in the middle, or do all the spokes end inside the nut?

 

[rib]

dont twist things.as i have allready said not necessary a brv thing. not confined to one boat.it is not a major safty thing unless you happen to fall hard against it and break two or more .a small number by manu standards could be a lot(i think volvo use a thousand)thay were not my boats(i like something a bit heavier)it was given by me as a cautionary warning from personal experiance.the helm in question is like bav pic but with out the inner clamp.but hay if your allso good you dont need any advise/help/caution from what ever direction great cause your all better than me,and before any body says it im just an ok sailor

 

[fireball]

Are these spokes continuous accross the diameter of the wheel with a weld in the middle, or do all the spokes end inside the nut?

Mine ... ends about 2" inside and welded (iirc) both sides onto one half of the hub. The weld is just a blob rather than the continuous line (and not a spot weld which is entirely different).
The Hub clamps down onto the spokes and should take all the load - I can only assume that in a batch of these the hub didn't take the load and left the welds to do so resulting in a fatigue fracture? If caught early these would be easy to weld up.

 

[rib]

fireball..my point as i tried to make ages ago

 

[Judders]

Hmmm, give me four foot of teak any day...