I was chatting to a fellow member the other day who felt his steering and rudder did not feel quite “right”. Upon close examination, it was just that the clamping screw where the shaft goes in to the steering arm was not gripping well. Have you looked at yours?

It may be perfectly cylindrical and nice and shiny – bad for clamp screws!!

Ideally the shaft should have a little flat bit where the clamp screw bites. Can you see it in this photo above? If you don’t have a ‘flat’, possibly a little patience with a flat file would fix it.

This subject introduced me to the whole topic of “do you take the rudder off to travel?” I must admit, in the boot of the car I don’t bother. However, any more ambitious travel and you might want to take both the fins out. I attach a great (short) video below of how this works on a K2 IOM, how to get your fingers in, what angle is best to held the boat when you do it etc. They use a little retainer spring in there too – clever.