When leaving a boat in a stand for any length of time, always leave the sails sheeted out if you leave it. If away for any time, the best thing to do is put the boat in the head-to-wind position to avoid any nasty instances!
Being blown out of the stand is a great way to end up with a bent rudder shaft for example – and you definitely will not want that !!
RW
See our tip on straightening rudder shafts by clicking here:-
It wouldn’t be so uncommon that the shaft of your Radio Sailing rudder gets bent for some reason.
What do you do about it?
Quite obviously you’d be inclined to grab the fin on one hand, and straighten it with the other. STOP !!
We had this at Datchet at the weekend. The problem is that the walls of the fin around the shaft are very very thin. The slightest application of leveraged pressure on the shaft might rip the sides of the fin off.
So what’s a way to prevent this? Lay a strip of wood each side of the top of the fin. Clamp them somehow to give the fin walls effective extra strength with the wood strips locked on. Do your straightening, then release the vice grip and take the wood strips away. Is the sidewall of the fin still intact on each side? Hope so !!
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