Squeaky Rudder Seizing up? - Replacing our Rudder Bushings TWICE on Blue Dot Voyages PILAR.

Here is the short story on why we replaced our rudder bushings twice! When we hauled the boat at Thunderbolt Marine in Savannah in January 2020, we had planned to replace the rudder bearing in the lower rudder shaft bearing carrier since they had become loose over time which is common. The rudder bearings are made of a material similar to Delrin (like Teflon) but of a material that is not shared from the OEM. Thunderbolt Marine had a machine shop that could make the bearings and knew the specifications from Leopard. That material was Delrin. After about two weeks we sailed and started to hear the squeaking and determined it was coming from the new bearings. That also caused a strain on the auto-pilot and got worse in short order. Turns out the bearings swelled once in the water and tightened up on the shaft causing the squeak and the strain. So we had to go back on the hard to replace the bearings. Thunderbolt offered to make new ones but I was leery after the first failure. We got in touch with International Boat Spares who supplied the original JP3 bearings. We had those shipped from France and we were there for the reinstall of the lower bearings. The bearings Thunderbolt made had swelled so much we had to cut them out of the bearing carrier under the boat. The original ones we took out fell out of the bearing carrier when we pulled them to be replaced. And the new ones from International Boat Spares slid right in for the reinstallation. Problem solved; lesson learned. At least in this case, buy OEM parts. http://www.international-boat-spares.com/en/44-inner-ball-bearing-type-10 LINKS: BLOG SITE: https://bluedotvoyages.com FACEBOOK: https://facebook.com/bluedotvoyages INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/bluedotvoyages.sailingpilar VIDEO SHORTS - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz8Z8h1MloaOcbszDZomQLhRz9PeLVL2G ALL EPISODES - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz8Z8h1MloaPq2o05r6wnJqaqyeABUKiu LONG VOYAGES - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLz8Z8h1MloaMVYY-0QB1x8dgRkA9laYnD Blue Dot Voyages is a Sailing Adventure Company. On our Leopard48 Sailing Catamaran PILAR, we sail, fish, snorkel, scuba, and we offer travel advice on our blog and vlog. We offer charter trips when we can. Watch our videos and live vicariously through us! Master Captain: Stephen Bell First Officer: Dawn Bell