Macwester 27 Rudder bearings

R

ronmarson

Well-Known Member
Joined
7 Mar 2008
Messages
299
Location
Galway Ireland
Visit site
The yard, under the direction of the surveyor, have dropped my rudder to facilitate the renewal of the bearings on the rudder stock. Unfortunately the boat is 300+ miles from home and I will not be able to visit until spring, and I have no idea what type of bearings I have to replace.
Anyone out there with a Macwester 27, Mk.2 1976 with any idea of what's involved or what the bearings are made of?
and please don't start slagging the Macwester 27, I have only just purchased it and I am looking forward to many years sailing it.
 
Don't worry- someone'll slag!

My Mac 26 had a top bearing and a bottom plain bearing, just a round peg in a round hole, no lube, mild steel. Mine had a saddle type fitting between the rudder and the shaft, so easy to remove the rudder when I did the cutless.

The MOA tech guy warns owners that the glassed in rudder tube is 40 yr old scaff pole.....

Enjoy your Mac, very, very strong boats

Nick
 
Last edited:
Good luck with your purchase Ron, and do join the Macwester Owner's Association. They are very helpful.

I have a Rowan, and it's lots of fun when I can get to use it.

There have been some cruising articles about a mac 26 or 27 ( I think) in either PBO or YM for some months. I'm in my sick bed right now suffering from all things the after effects of Vertigo, so can't locate the actual mags.

Geoff

( Appledore Belle)
 
Geoff,
if you find a remedy for the Vertigo please let me know. I have it for years, it makes sailing so much more challenging.
Thanks for all your replies, I think I had better prepair myself for the worst. 40 year old Scaf pole sounds like a bit of work ahead. But what are the bearings made of?
 
ronmarson said:
Geoff,
if you find a remedy for the Vertigo please let me know. I have it for years, it makes sailing so much more challenging.
Thanks for all your replies, I think I had better prepair myself for the worst. 40 year old Scaf pole sounds like a bit of work ahead. But what are the bearings made of?
Click to expand...

Unlikely to be anything fancy. May be Tufnol, but more likely an acetal such as Delrin which is water lubricated. Easy to get machined to size.
 
ronmarson said:
Geoff,
if you find a remedy for the Vertigo please let me know. I have it for years, it makes sailing so much more challenging.
Thanks for all your replies, I think I had better prepair myself for the worst. 40 year old Scaf pole sounds like a bit of work ahead. But what are the bearings made of?
Click to expand...

How about stugeron for vertigo
 
sailorman said:
How about stugeron for vertigo
Click to expand...

Not wanting to altar tack in this forum question, but Ron also asked about vertigo. firstly, I do not suffer from seasickness, even when battered by heavy seas in my little Macwester Rowan off Guernsey. When I was doing my sailing courses at the Joint Services STC Gosport, I would take a couple of Stugeron just in case! There were no side effects.

Over the past 6years I have been hit by what I call Severe Vertigo. Usually there is a slight indication that something may not be right, but the real attack comes along hours later. First attack left me off work for 10 weeks, second one, where I fell down in the garden in the evening, and needed an ambulance crew to get me inside and administer the Buccastem (little tablets that go between the lip and gum). I was off work for only 2 weeks! Last Easter's attack left me unable to stand up for 4 days (I slept in a chair all the time downstairs), and when I could stagger around it was another 10 weeks before I got back to work. That attack had no warning, just - and here are all the symptoms, always the same too - a dizzy attack, where the carpet and furniture spin around, like a corkscrew, followed by a severe cold sweat, then severe vomiting, which can last for hours, although there's no longer anything to bring up!! That hurts!! Then sitting with eyes tightly closed and very occasionally cracking them open to see if the room's stopped moving. Can be a day or more or just a few hours. Even when the spinning ceases it often returns for half an hour or so. After that, I am unable to stand, slet alone walk.

Saturday week's episode started at work, and I felt a bit light-headed in the morning, but thought nothing of it all day. At 4 pm I strolled along to lock the yard gates, and when I reached up to fit the key in the lock the steel gate started violently spinning. Fortunately I had some tablets with me and stuck one either side of my nose' under the lip. You have to do this because obviously the vomiting, the next stage, would make them useless if swallowed!

Eventually my wife came in the car and drove me home, all the time with my eyes firmly shut. It took 3workmates to get me into the car, and three people to get me into the house once home. About 4 hours later I found I could just about watch the X Factor, but decided to keep eyes closed, which wasn't really a bad thing, LOL! I thought that the speed in which I self-administered the tablets could have saved my bacon. Sunday I was up and around as if nothing had happened, similar on Monday. Tuesday I was feeling a little dizzy again so took one of the other tables prescribed by the doctor, called Beta his time, or something like that. A second pill Lawrence was followed by vomiting, but not that bad. I decided to go up to bed that afternoon. Wednesday I followed on with the Beta tabs, but felt even more dizzy, so I decided to leave them off. On reading the distraction leaflet I was horrified to find that they could cause all the symptoms I'd been suffering!!

So, and sorry for the lengthy tome, but you did ask, I started taking Stugeron, which I had also prevoiusly been prescribed. That leaflet says they can help controll ALL the symptoms I now was suffering from. However, not so. After a day of taking them, I was still seeing the lightbulb spinning from time to time, so now I am taking NOTHING!

I've now been bed-bound for six days, and I can stand , but need my wife's help to move to the bathroom, holding onto everything. It's not dizziness, but I just have no balance, and my head feels like it want's to fall off my shoulders. Other than that I feel 100% well, and frustrated at not being able to do anything. So I suppose it'll be another ten weeks before I can walk around easily.

On a more nautical note (thank Goodness I hear you say:D:D ) , I did go to the Channel Islands in my little
Rowan in July this year, and found absolutely no problems, until I got ashore, where I still had to be careful how I turned, or stepped over low fences, etc. Someone has already suggested to me that perhaps I should live on my boat, albeit a bit small. Perhaps I should!!

Happy Christmas:D:D

Ps. Please excuse typos, I'm doing this on my iPad, and. As I said, in bed.

Geoff
 
Geoff,
you have made me feel like a fraud, I only get dizzy if I look up suddenly or look down, as into the engine compartment while in a seaway, or if I turn quickly to one side or the other. It also takes me a while to focus if I turn to view something far off. As for vomiting, I have not had that pleasure, or the falling over.
The Doc gave me Stematil some years ago, but when I read that they were only good for stopping sickness, and that was not my problem, I stopped taking them.
They sent me for a 'scan' it proved I had a brain, but not much more, and I now have lots of pretty pictures to frighten the grandchildren with.
After reading what REAL vertigo is like I promise I will not mention it again. Ever.
I do hope you recover in time for Christmas.
I went out shopping for a Rowan, then I saw a Rowan Crown, that lead me to the 27, and the wife shouted STOP.
Thanks for sharing your story.
RoN
 
Hi Ron,

Glad you liked my Tome on Vertigo, LOL! Perhaps I should type up a sheet so I can just let those who enquire about it read it for themselves, haha.

Did I say that since Easter's attack I also have tinnitus? Well yes I do, and that drives me crazy, especially when it's quiet. The Stugeron are meant to help this condition, but so far have had little or no effect.

I think there are various vertigo conditions, and you too seem to have a variant.

Returning to your topic, I'm sure you will really enjoy your Mac. There are lots around . As others will tell you, not a fast craft, but steady and safe. My first objective would be to ensure the engine was reliable. Yes, been there in my Rowan, and now on third engine.

Geoff
 
I am keeping my fingers crossed on the engine front, it's a Volvo MD11C. It starts well, it runs well, the surveyor says it's OK, but the spares situation looks a bit of a problem if it ever goes wrong.
Engines are expensive things so I will look after it and hope.
On the health side of things, I hear there are some funny cigarettes that MAY help with Tinnitus, I haven't tried them but I hear that an OAP granny was arrested with £650 in her purse trying to buy some wacky backy from a guy on the corner of the street. She claimed she was buying for the old folks club as they all have Tinnitus.
Don't think it would help the Vertigo though.
I must try the stugeron, is that available over the counter or do you need a prescription?
RoN
 
Ron.

You can buy Stugeron from any chemist, over the counter The tabs the quack gave me are actually called Cinnarizine 15mg. Not sure if they are exactly the same, but they are perhaps only on prescription.

Might I suggest you do a dummy run with them? Next time to go to your boat, take two a couple of hours beforehand, to get into your system. Then see if activities such as peering Down into the cabin, or looking up at the masthead improve. It probably won't help you when you look into your bank balance, hahaha :D:D:D

Geoff
 
I am interested to see the replies for replacing rudder bearings because I have a Macwester too; great boats and as fast as any other, just need to trim the sails more often and tune the rigging regularly
 
Welcome aboard Captain Fantastic,
Did you look to see what your bearings are made of?
I am sitting over in Galway and wishing the boat was in my back garden so I could fiddle with it.
I am trying to decide on a date to book my Ryannair tickets for. If I book early it's cheep, but then the weather may turn sh1*** and I will get nothing done, but if I leave it late to book I pay a lot more.
There again if I get over there early and get the work done I can go sailing, as against arriving late only to find that I have a heap of repairs and sailing goes out the window until May, or June, or....
When it doe's get done I will post the details here.
RoN
 
well, I have taken the bearings, or what was left of them out. They are all some kind of plastic, top bearing is screwed into it's housing with a very course thread. We discovered this after we had levered it out with screwdrivers and a lot of swearing.
the middle one, ie, under the transom, was just about non-existent and was only held in by the rust, it seems to be a push fit, I will stick it in with Tec7.
The bottom bearing was located in a nice, fairly new, lump of stainless steel fashioned into a shoe, bolted onto the skeg, it also was so badly worn that it was hard to salvage enough to photograph.
Anyway, my Brother-in-Law, being of an engineering bent took the measurement and has made new ones, and spares, in Delrin, so now it's just a matter of replacing all the bits.
The bottom of the rudder had been damaged and repaired a number of times, so I cut the suspect bits off with an angle grinder and reinforced it with a lump of hard wood and glassed the whole lot together again.
If this is the worst that the surveyor could find wrong with my new purchase, I am a very happy man, and I will embark on my journey back to Galway as soon as weather permits.
If anyone wants Pics, such as they are, let me know.
RoN
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Other threads that may be of interest

Anibal
Garmin GPSmap 1223xsv rudder indicator
Replies
18
Views
420
Anibal
Anibal

Share this page

Top