Jengu, as with any boat, is a work in progress. The more we fix and fettle the more we find we need to fix. As a consequence January 2016 saw us working on more of the issues with Jengu that had been highlighted after a full seasons sailing. 

Our number one priority was to check the rudder assembly. We had noticed a wobble to the steering when sailing in a cross sea, investigating further while the boat was still in the water showed that there was about a millimetre of play at the base of the rudder post where it came through the hull. This translated to a noticeable side to side movement in the wheel when a wave caught the rudder blade side on. In early January 2016 we took advantage of the reasonably good weather to lift Jengu at Gosport Boat yard so that we could drop the rudder out of the boat to inspect the bearings. Surprisingly the boatyard in January wasn’t that busy ..just us and the swans…but then it was -6 degrees centigrade at 8am that morning.

Disassembly of the rudder showed that the nylon rudder bearing had worn a groove in the stainless steel shaft. Jengu has solid Nylon bearings unlike some other J109’s that have a hollow nylon ball with roller bearings around the rudder shaft.

The Nylon bearings are very hard and will wear the stainless steel shaft over time. We had a couple of options to remove the play in the rudder.
We could completely replace the rudder assembly, something which we didn’t have the budget to do and would have taken too long too get the parts anyway.
We could put a sleeve around the shaft but the sleeve would have been very thin given the limited amount of wear.
Finally we could make a new nylon bearing to fit the worn shaft. 

We went with option three – its a short term fix but should be good for a couple of years – waiting for a new rudder assembly while the boat was sitting in the yard wasn’t really practical and Jengu couldn’t go back in the water until the rudder was fixed. 

The socket into which the nylon bearing fitted was also worn but not badly enough for us to replace it at that point. We will look to do that as part of next winters refit.

The Nylon bearing fits into the metal socket a bit like an eyeball. With the rudder post going up through the centre of the bearing. The image here is from the Jefa website and represents the steering assembly for a similar type of boat. The are some differences in the way that the wheel is connected to the quadrant but the detail for the bearings and post is very close to the J109
The nylon bearing turned out to be quite sensitive to the air temperature; on the colder days we visited the yard to check progress the bearings were a very tight fit on the rudder post. As the day warmed up they would be a lot easier to rotate and slide on or off the post. 

Whilst the rudder was out we looked at the pedestal that the wheel is attached to. Last season we had a big leak around the base of the pedestal that meant we took on a lot of water in certain sea conditions or heavy rain. Greg from the yard removed the wheel, compass and unbolted the pedestal.

There were two bolts securing the unit to the deck through a very thin flange of glass fibre. Effectively the pedestal was held in place by a couple of small bolts, some very old sealant and the downward force of the chains for the steering gear. To get the steering assembly secure and stop the leaks we would have to fibre glass a new flange onto the pedestal. This would need to be capable of taking some heavier duty bolts to fix the pedestal to the deck before we resealed the whole unit back down to keep the water out. We were waiting for the rudder bearing to come back from the fabricator so Greg from the yard got to work on rebuilding the pedestal.

Removing the wheel and pedestal from a J109 makes a lot of space in the cockpit ….

We also had a couple of upgrades we wanted to do.
First we wanted to fit a bob-stay. A line between the hull close to the water line and the end of the bowsprit. This is designed to resist the upward pull on the end of the bowsprit generated by the asymmetric spinnaker and make it possible to put more tension in the luff of the spinnaker with the halyard.
Secondly; we wanted to fit in-haulers to make it possible to sheet the non overlapping headsails closer to the centre line of the boat.

Fitting the bob-stay was relatively simple. We did some research on the internet and went for the simplest method we could find; bearing in mind that we might need to detach the bob-stay in future.
To attach the stay to the bow at the waterline we drilled a second drain hole to the anchor locker and enlarged the first drain slightly. For those of you who have read the post you will know about how we filled the anchor locker with water during one race last season when the existing drain hole got blocked.

Adding the second drain and enlarging the existing one would have the side affect of increasing the drain rate for the water in the locker. We also removed the small stainless cover over the drain hole. I’ve never really understood what benefit other than cosmetic these fittings have. The gel coat around the new and enlarged holes was refinished to make sure the whole assembly was smooth and water tight. The actual structure of the J109 at the bow below the anchor locker is very solid.

Jerry the Rigger then added a longer u-bolt to the end of the bowsprit with an eye nut rather than a plain nut on one side. The U Bolt holds a low friction ring on top of the bowsprit for the tack line to run through. We then used a stripped piece of Dyneema to create the stay. The Dyneema has a length of shock cord inside so that it shrinks in length when the tension is released and some outer coat to protect it where it goes through the hull.

The in-haulers were slightly more complex. We did some more internet based research to see what other people had done. We found Bill Knellers artica on the J109 Class Association forum that a lot of other people including Kerry Klinger from Quantum Sails had contributed to very useful. J109 In-hauler Thread

Our final setup gives us slightly less mechanical advantage than that proposed by Kerry and Bill but should be sufficient for our purposes. We didn’t cross of the lines, Bill and Kerry’s designs assume that the crew will work these lines from the rail. Experience with our last boat showed that adjusting the in-haulers is usually done at the same time as the sheet is trimmed and genoa car position adjusted so all the control lines were lead to roughly the same place on each side.

As can be seen from the images we fixed the Cam Cleat and Cheek Blocks close to the main clutches on top of the cabin roof. On each side one of the bolts attaching the deck organiser on the cabin roof was replaced with an eye bolt. There is a voice at the back of my heading saying that the eye bolt will be a trip hazard and it will be my bare foot that catches it but taking that approach minimised the number of holes we had to drill in the cabin roof.

The remaining blocks were left floating free so that they could be removed if not required. We attached the forward end of the line through the low friction rings to the ring at the base of the mast.

The complete list for those interested:
2 x Harken 150 Cam Cleat – with a custom wooden block placed to lift the rope over the deck moulding and a wide loop fairlead.
2 x Harken 40mm Swivel Block
2 x Harken 40mm Cheek Block
2 x Harken 40mm Swivel Becket Block
2 x Barton 22mm Low Friction Ring.
2 x stainless steel bolt with an eye at one end.

As you can see from the images the position of the low friction ring is roughly level with the shroud base. We have a North 104% No3 headsail that we will use the in-haulers with. The clew is quite low and the in-hauler will bring it about 30cm further inboard.

We finished off the maintenance with some work on the keel. 

The keel has clearly come into contact with the seabed more than once over the years. I still don’t understand how you can have scuff marks on the top side of the keel. There were also flints embedded in the leading edge.  Our berth in the marina at Gosport seems to have acquired an extra foot or so of mud over the last year or so; presumably due to the dredging thats being done in Portsmouth for the navy’s new aircraft carriers. Jengu had been back in the water since August and in that time the soft mud has polished the eroding anti foul off the bottom 30cm of the keel – its as if she is sitting in a mud berth.

Once the gashes had been filled and rubbed down to a smooth finish we re-anti-fouled the keel. 

We took our upgraded boat for a spin the second weekend in March and everything worked so we are set for another years sailing … or at least until the next spot of boat maintenance is required. 

Lets hope the sunshine carries on for the next 9 months.

Bill April 2017

Originally published April 18 2017