Rudder Packing

WARNING: If you are not into boat maintenance this will be a boring post to you. The rudder packing has been leaking every since be bought IQ, but I have been apprehensive about tackling this task. I even went to a mechanic here in Marathon to have him do it. He quoted me a couple hundred dollars and told me to get ahold of him the next week as he was too busy right now. Well that was enough motivation for me to learn something new and take a little risk.

The boat is in the water, so that means I would be taking out the seal around the rudder shaft that keeps water on the outside of the boat which is where I want to keep it. I did not know how freely the water would come in once I removed the old packing, but since I have 3 bilge pumps I felt that we would be okay and not sink our home. It turned out that once I had the old packing out that the water did not come in much faster than it had been coming in. I had the new packing cut and ready to install. It went very smooth and only took about twenty minutes. Twenty minutes work and $9 worth of packing material. Maybe I should look at a career as a boat mechanic. Wait a minute, that would mean I would have to go to work everyday. Never mind I will just work on my own boat. It took longer to take everything out of the butt hold and put it back than to do the packing. After I was done I did clean everthing up and paint though, that took awhile.

"Butt Hold" where the rudder shaft enters the boat.

Rudder shaft and hydralic steering components.

Rudder shaft and packing gland.

New packing lubed up and ready to install.

Old packing removed.

New packing in and not a drop of water. How needs a mechanic? We don't need no stinking $100 an hour mechanic.