Race boat refit - our hardest job yet - PART 2 | Ep. 22

With only 14 weeks left to go until we go back into the water, we need to focus on the jobs that will stop us from doing just that. To recap, we noticed our rudder shaft was leaking on the sail from New Zealand to Fiji. So we removed the rudder so we could inspect the condition of the bearing. On our boat the rudder bearing is self aligning and custom made from high quality material in order to cope with extreme loads... and without which we'd have a great big hole in our boat! In the end, to find a solution for our rudder bearing is such a big job that it's going to take me 3 videos to explain it to you. Our rudder system involves 2 bearings; one attaches to the rudder where it passes through the deck, and the other attaches to the rudder where it passes through the hull. These bearings work on what we call sleeves, which are aluminium covers which fit over the rudder post. After cleaning it up, we could see that the sleeve for the bottom bearing had a the bottom ring which was badly corroded. This bottom ring is part of the bottom seal of the bottom bearing and helps stop water coming into the boat. We can't get to this bottom corroded ring without first removing the aluminium sleeve, which has unfortunately been glued on, making it impossible to remove without damaging it. The lower bearing itself is still attached to the boat. The problem with this is that the rubber seal is damaged and it's positioned between the bearing and the boat. So to remove this seal, we first have to remove the bearing, which will most probably involve pushing it up into the boat. However at the moment this part of the boat is sat on the container, leaving only about a 20cm gap between the bottom of the boat and top of the container. So we've got 2 big problems: 1) Remove sleeve from bottom bearing which is glued onto the rudder shaft 2) Remove damaged rubber seal which is between the bottom bearing and the boat We've got no drawings of our bearing systems or diagrams to follow and since we've been unable to track down the previous owner of the boat that installed this rudder bearing, the company that made it said that we'd have to send us the actual bearing in order for them to identify it as it was custom made... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you enjoyed this video please consider supporting us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/SailingNV or with a one-off donation via https://ko-fi.com/sailingnv or paypal https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/sailingnv -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Caio! We are Timo and Jo, an Italian and English couple with countless ocean miles under our belts, including sailing half way around the world from Europe to Fiji! Last year we bought an Open 66 ft race sailing boat originally designed and built by the famous Hungarian sailor Nándor Fa, which he raced in the 1990 Around Alone & 1992 Vendée Globe (round the world single handed race known as “the Everest of the seas”), becoming the first non-frenchman to finish the race. We are currently in Fiji giving this old gladiator a new lease on life, transforming her from an ex race boat to a performance family cruiser, which we'll need to make both dog and baby proof! We’re planning to set sail again in Oct 2022, so with limited time&money we have plenty of challenges ahead to turn our dreams into reality&get back on the water! Subscribe to our channel&track our progress as we release videos about our journey as well as "how to" videos about anything boat related. Never stop to dream, never stop to sail! You can find out more about the boat, us and our refit plans on our website www.sailingnv.com or follow us on Facebook https://m.facebook.com/sailingyachtnv and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/sailingnv/ #sailingnv #sailingblog #refit #sailing #boatlife #Open60 #raceboat #cruising #sailingvlog #boatwork #lifeinfiji #sailingfamily #fijirefit #nandorfa #vendeeglobe