Rudder Stuffing Box

[Anonymous]

Hi all,

Has anyone had to stuff the stuffing box on the rudder? I seem to have a
fair amount of water trickling out around the top of the rudder shaft!!!
Any ideas on How to fix this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Steve aboard RUBYS RASCAL hull 113

[Ronar M]

Hi Steve

I have the same problem with Ronar M. I have undone the top of the stuffing box but still can’t get at the relevant bit because there is a sleeve on the rudder shaft which prevents the top of the box coming up high enough. I have tried screwing the top down tighter and this seems to have helped but not eliminated the problem altogether. I too would like some advice

Cheers, Trevor

[Van]

The previous owner of Rainshadow had the same problem and the only solution he had was to cut the sleeve off (a non-trivial task) to be able to lift the upper section of the box high enough to be able to get to the stuffing material.

In our recent rudder rebuild, we had Port Townsend Foundry make a coupler (like you might have on a prop shaft) to replace the sleeve. Much shorter hopefully solving the problem.

Details at http://svrainshadow.com/?p=1144

Van

[Anonymous]

Hi Van,

Thanks for the information sorry about the delay in replying work commitments etc, I am not going to tackle this problem till March when RUBYS RASCAL is out of the water for antifouling, after reading your “Rebuilding the rudder” article I feel confident that i should be able to fix the problem, what packing material should i use?
thanks Van

best regards Steve aboard RUBYS RASCAL

[Van]

Hi Steve,

I used the same stuffing material that is used in the prop shaft stuffing box. 5/16″ teflon flax made by Western Pacific Trading. I believe I bought 2 feet at a cost of around $5. I think it made about six loops to fit around the rudder shaft, and I used five of them in the stuffing box.

Hope that helps!

Van

[Anonymous]

Hi Van,
Thank you very much for the information, this forum and website has been a real godsend for me. 🙂

best regards Steve
aboard RUBYS RASCAL

[Author]

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