We lucked out last weekend when one of our most important systems (steering) failed while at the dock and in a very controlled setting. It very easily could have happened when we were under way.
We were peacefully asleep in the middle of the night at our temporary home slip in Bremerton, Washington on Friday night. Suddenly there was a loud grinding noise and the boat lurched to port and into the dock like several 200+ pound men had jumped onto our deck at once. My wife screamed (quite loudly).
I sprang from sleep in my boxers and assumed my Kung Foo defensive combat posture, ready for battle. Things (except my heartbeat) seemed to settle down. We stood there quietly for at least 10 minutes waiting in the dark for the invaders on the deck to make their next move.
Turns out they weren't there.
In the morning, we surmised what had happened. The tidal current runs 2+ knots forward and backward through the marina. Some very large object had hit our rudder when it was running backward and drove us into the dock. We assumed it would be a log, but the marina staff said they had never heard of a log moving through the marina. There are 2,000 pound Stellar Sea Lions, though, so maybe it was one of those with an attitude?
Regardless of what it was, it actually pointed out a very important safety condition (aka Achilles Heel) that urgently needed some attention: Our Idler was badly corroded and basically disintegrated when the unknown thing hit our rudder.
What's an Idler?
I had previously noticed the Idler plate looked corroded/weathered, but it seemed to be solid still. Turns out not really. I think we have the original Edson pedestal & steering system that Morgan installed in the factory.
We had to take off the autopilot arm and the Radial Drive Wheel (aka Quadrant) to get the cables free so that we could remove the cable and Idler. There are 4 big aluminum bolts that attach the base of the pedestal to the Idler plate. They were fused and unmovable, although one of them was sheared off during this incident. I drilled out the other 3 and will be replacing with stainless steel. I don't really understand why they would use aluminum for those bolts.
Located at the back of the engine compartment, the Idler is in one of the least accessible areas of the boat. A few marine-grade curse words were dropped and I'm thankful my wife is more portable and nimble than I. She did the hard parts.
This is what the old Idler looked like. If I picked it up by one of the sheaves, the whole thing would fall apart.
On Monday morning, I had a very helpful conversation with a knowledgeable gentleman named Reed at Edson International. He helped me find the right replacement part (Adjustable Crossed Wire Idler, part number 776AL-4AL).
He also highly recommended replacing the chain & cable - even if they still look good, every 10 years. Mine still looked OK, but I know it hasn't been replaced in 18 years, so we are doing that too. I guess they develop hairline cracks in the chain where you can't seem them until they fail.
So we have those parts on the way and will be heading back up to Bremerton on Thursday to get things put back together.
While she is taken apart, we needed to keep her rudder from flip/flopping in the tidal currents. So we put together and used our Emergency Tiller for the first time. Good practice and we were able to confirm it works. If the Idler had failed while we were out voyaging, we would have used this Emergency Tiller. It was good to learn it is not a 2 minute fix, but rather would probably take 20 minutes from start to finish to get the tiller working.
Caveat: we have a 1983 Morgan 384. I've seen photos of some earlier M38s that used a different quadrant/steering, etc. So your part numbers may vary.
Anyway, we are really thankful this happened when it did. We have spent considerable time and money being sure our boat is safe. It would have been ironic if this one little piece had failed at a bad time. I'll post about the progress after we get it fixed.
We were peacefully asleep in the middle of the night at our temporary home slip in Bremerton, Washington on Friday night. Suddenly there was a loud grinding noise and the boat lurched to port and into the dock like several 200+ pound men had jumped onto our deck at once. My wife screamed (quite loudly).
I sprang from sleep in my boxers and assumed my Kung Foo defensive combat posture, ready for battle. Things (except my heartbeat) seemed to settle down. We stood there quietly for at least 10 minutes waiting in the dark for the invaders on the deck to make their next move.
Turns out they weren't there.
In the morning, we surmised what had happened. The tidal current runs 2+ knots forward and backward through the marina. Some very large object had hit our rudder when it was running backward and drove us into the dock. We assumed it would be a log, but the marina staff said they had never heard of a log moving through the marina. There are 2,000 pound Stellar Sea Lions, though, so maybe it was one of those with an attitude?
Regardless of what it was, it actually pointed out a very important safety condition (aka Achilles Heel) that urgently needed some attention: Our Idler was badly corroded and basically disintegrated when the unknown thing hit our rudder.
What's an Idler?
I had previously noticed the Idler plate looked corroded/weathered, but it seemed to be solid still. Turns out not really. I think we have the original Edson pedestal & steering system that Morgan installed in the factory.
We had to take off the autopilot arm and the Radial Drive Wheel (aka Quadrant) to get the cables free so that we could remove the cable and Idler. There are 4 big aluminum bolts that attach the base of the pedestal to the Idler plate. They were fused and unmovable, although one of them was sheared off during this incident. I drilled out the other 3 and will be replacing with stainless steel. I don't really understand why they would use aluminum for those bolts.
Located at the back of the engine compartment, the Idler is in one of the least accessible areas of the boat. A few marine-grade curse words were dropped and I'm thankful my wife is more portable and nimble than I. She did the hard parts.
This is what the old Idler looked like. If I picked it up by one of the sheaves, the whole thing would fall apart.
On Monday morning, I had a very helpful conversation with a knowledgeable gentleman named Reed at Edson International. He helped me find the right replacement part (Adjustable Crossed Wire Idler, part number 776AL-4AL).
He also highly recommended replacing the chain & cable - even if they still look good, every 10 years. Mine still looked OK, but I know it hasn't been replaced in 18 years, so we are doing that too. I guess they develop hairline cracks in the chain where you can't seem them until they fail.
So we have those parts on the way and will be heading back up to Bremerton on Thursday to get things put back together.
While she is taken apart, we needed to keep her rudder from flip/flopping in the tidal currents. So we put together and used our Emergency Tiller for the first time. Good practice and we were able to confirm it works. If the Idler had failed while we were out voyaging, we would have used this Emergency Tiller. It was good to learn it is not a 2 minute fix, but rather would probably take 20 minutes from start to finish to get the tiller working.
Caveat: we have a 1983 Morgan 384. I've seen photos of some earlier M38s that used a different quadrant/steering, etc. So your part numbers may vary.
Anyway, we are really thankful this happened when it did. We have spent considerable time and money being sure our boat is safe. It would have been ironic if this one little piece had failed at a bad time. I'll post about the progress after we get it fixed.
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