Some tiller and rudder adjustments

Sometimes something happens for which you cannot account. Take, for example, my rudder. For nine years the rudder down-haul has worked perfectly and then for no reason that I can discern, it suddenly stopped working on the recent Southpool Creek trip and I had to keep leaning over the transom to push it down in to place - extremely irritating I might add.

Not bent, not jammed, didn't hit the bottom with it. Ropes all move freely. It just stopped working of its own accord.

So today a little rudder TLC and whilst I was at it I made some adjustments to the tiller as well.

Firstly, I re-threaded the down-haul and moved one eyelet where it secured it to the base of the rudder tiller  stock.

And hey presto, with that one small alteration, it started working again - go figure!

The addition of an extra eye guide at the base of the rudder stock made all the difference but don't ask me to explain why - I genuinely have no idea - but it now works again and that is the main thing

On the tiller, I moved one or two cleats to new positions to make handling of down-haul and up-haul easier, filled in some screw holes with wood filler and installed a new metal eye for the tiller tamer.
The old eye was beginning to cause the tiller tamer rope loop to jam - again for no particular reason I could discern - wear and tear I guess.

It's nice to potter for an hour or so in the workshop, aka the garage, doing odd little jobs. Makes me feel all happy and productive - how weird is that?

The big white plastic eye has been removed and the new silver circular eye replaces it

The black cleat has been moved from on top of the tiller to the new side position, allowing the extension pole to sit better on the tiller top when not being used.