Replacing the v-cleat on the rudder with an auto-release model

— August, 2007 —

Earlier this month I was sailing parallel to a shore that I have passed many times on our local pond, but never when the water was so low. To my surprise, I heard a kind of whooshing, gritty noise and the boat slowed and stopped. I looked into the cabin and, just as I suspected, the daggerboard was pushing up and back, stretching out its bungee. Obviously, I had hit a sandbar.
I cranked the daggerboard halfway up and headed back out toward the middle of the channel. No big deal, really, except... when I got back into deeper water, I saw that the grounding had also pushed on the bottom beaching half of my Idasailor rudder. The stress actually caused the line in the v-cleat to rip out the top two holes through the composite on the front of the rudder. Below on the left you can see how the line was strung before the mishap: it would thread straight up the front of the rudder, go into one hole, out another, and then you would have to string it sideways and cinch it back down diagonally into the v-cleat.

Before the grounding

After the grounding

On the right above you can see the damage caused. The rudder still works just fine, of course, but I am surprised that the composite would rip out so easily. Not a very good design, in my opinion —especially for a rudder that is expressly supposed to be used for beaching.
As a matter of fact, I have always wondered why Idasailor strings the line through those holes, then sideways, then back down to the v-cleat at an angle. What were their engineers thinking? My old wooden rudder's line certainly wasn't strung like that. Moreover, wouldn’t it make more sense to use a cleat that releases when “push-comes-to-shove”? After all, you can bet that this is not the first time someone has sailed into a sandbar with one of these rudders —nor will it be the last.
I learned my lesson from the experience and determined to replace that cursed v-cleat with an auto-release model made by Layline in England, and available from Duckworks for $21. The following photo on the left shows this product mounted on my rudder. It might look like an ordinary v-cleat, except that one end pivots around a hinge and the other is held down by a cam.

The auto-release cleat

How the cleat pops open

On the right above you can see how, when the tension on the line exceeds the cam’s setting, the cleat will pop up, releasing the line —and saving the rudder! You can apparently adjust the cam to resist from 50 to 520 lbs. of force before releasing. I plan to simply use the lowest setting at all times, as I can’t imagine water flowing against the rudder could ever exceed 50 lbs. of thrust, even in a hurricane, but I want the cleat to release immediately if the rudder ever strikes bottom again.
Installing the auto-release cleat was a bit more complicated that I anticipated. At first, I had surmised that I could put the cleat right on the front of the rudder, since the line is strung vertically from bottom to top. However, there is just not enough room there to allow the cleat to pop open easily, let alone cinch the line through it when lowering the bottom half of the rudder. I realized that I would have to mount the cleat on the side, similar to the original v-cleat, but in this instance at a more appropriate angle for the line’s path up the rudder.
The instruction sheet says that it is essential that the line enter the auto-release cleat horizontally, and suggests using a fairlead to accomplish this. Moreover, it also states that the fairlead cannot be any closer than 4" to the cleat. With these parameters in mind, I could determine how, where, and at what angle to install the cleat. First, I mounted a fairlead toward the front edge of the rudder to keep the line from rubbing on the composite and then guide it toward the cleat. You can see the fairlead in the following photo to the left.

The fairlead guides the line toward the cleat

The finished installation

On the right above you can see the finished installation, with the line cinched into the auto-release cleat. I am happy to report that... it really works! If you have QuickTime on your computer, you can click on the following link to open a short movie of the cleat in action:

QuickTime movie of Auto-Release Cleat
(320x240, 664 KB, 16 seconds)

I am pleased with this upgrade. For the life of me, I can’t imagine why Idasailor doesn’t simply include these cleats with all their beaching rudders. Murphy’s Law dictates that, sooner or later, something’s gotta give —and I would rather have the auto-release cleat doing the “giving” than the rudder itself.

— August 2008 —

I have yet to put the release cleat to the test while on the water, but in all honesty I need to report that I had a mishap in which it did not release as I had hoped it would.
My admiral has suffered a series of illnesses this summer, and thus was unable to accompany me on our annual sailing trip to Bear Lake. I had already paid for a week in the slip at the marina, so I figured that I might as well try to get my money’s worth, even though I would be all by my lonesome. Unfortunately, I only got a couple of hours of sailing in the first afternoon. You see, I spent the first night in abject misery because a kidney stone decided to rear its ugly head. I had no other choice but to forfeit the slip, pull the boat out the next morning, and head back home to see the doctor. I eventually ended up in the emergency room (thank Neptune for intravenous pain relievers!), and passed the arrow head a couple of days later.

To make a long story even longer, as you can well imagine, I was not exactly clear-headed when trying to retrieve Harried Potter, de-rig her, and drive home. Pain clouds your ability the concentrate, and even though I managed to get her onto the trailer just fine at the launch ramp, I had forgotten one important detail: I hadn't raised the rudder. Consequently, when I pulled her out of the water, up the ramp, and through the parking lot, the bottom of the rudder was scraping on the cement and asphalt the whole way. To my chagrin and anger, the release cleat... did not release! The line was jammed as tight as could be in it, yet it held the rudder firm against the ground, instead of letting it pop up. The result... is that it now has a good-sized hunk of the corner filed off flat, as you can see in the photo to the right.
Obviously, I was not at all happy to discover this damage to the rudder, and I was tempted to take a hammer to the so-called release cleat, but... the kidney stone reminded me that I was fighting a losing battle and would soon go down for the count.
I will simply have to see if the rudder still steers well without that front corner next season. If not... well, maybe I'll just have to replace the rudder yet again, next time with an Idasailor Unifoil Kick-Up model that boasts a gas strut to raise the lower blade in just such a mishap.

Blade Runner