I do not have much experience with the rudder.  I only cleaned one of the mounting bolts to reset the grounding connection.  It wasn't leaking so I decided not to fix what wasn't broken.  I'll have to address it some day.

Rudder Stuffing Box

As long as I've owned Sarah she has had a wet bilge.  In that time I've tried to find the source of the leak or leaks in vain.  The leaks were so slight I could find no evidence of where the water was coming from.  The leaks were slight enough that I rarely noticed the bilge pump coming on, but no matter how dry I pumped the bilge within a week it would be completely wet again.

      I thought I could detect a leak from the propeller shaft stuffing box and I replaced that with a PSS shaft seal.  A marine surveyor who had done work on the boat for the previous owner thought it was possible that a boat yard may have set the boat down on the aft portion of the keel, which is hollow.  He thought the fiberglass may have cracked enough to allow in a small trickle of water.  Before I left for Florida in 2004 I had the lower portion of the keel re-glassed.

All to no avail.  The bilge constantly had an inch or less of water in it.  While living on board in Florida over the winter of 2004-2005 I began to notice that the bilge pump came on at least once every two or three days.  This was more often than I had noticed in the past.  It would come on even more often during rainy weather, which told me at least one of the leaks was on deck.

While sailing across the Atlantic to Portugal I noticed that the frequency of bilge pump activity was increasing.  By the time we were approaching the coast of Portugal the pump was coming on every 2 - 3 hours.  During this period we had no rain.

     Now at least the flow of water was sufficient to leave evidence.  I could see a very slight leak coming from under the engine pan.  This meant the leak was coming from somewhere under the cockpit.  That left the rudder stuffing box as the prime suspect.

I could not verify that the stuffing box was leaking because I could not see it.  When originally built this Pearson 424 provided adequate, if not comfortable, access to this stuffing box.  However, the primary access was through the stern lazzarette, which on Sarah houses the generator installed by the previous owner.  The P.O. as installed a small battery box in the port sail locker, which blocked access from that locker.  In the first year of my ownership I installed the drive unit for the autopilot in the starboard sail locker.  So all of the normal access points for the stuffing box are blocked on Sarah.

Once secured in the marina in Cascais, PT the leak reduced to the same amount of bilge pump activity as the previous winter in Florida.  So it was obvious that the leak was greater when Sarah was underway - further pointing to the rudder stuffing box.

     Over that winter I started planning how I could get at the stuffing box to either tighten or re-pack it.  The solution arrived in the person of my wee welsh friend, Martin.  Martin could fit down into the lockers in a way I never will and at least he could see the stuffing box.  He confirmed that it was indeed leaking and that there were ample threads on the fitting to allow it to be tightened significantly.  So we probably didn't have to re-pack it at this time.

About this time I was able to get my digital camera down into the area of the stuffing box and took the two pictures above, right and left.  In the top picture you can see the amount of thread below the lock nut (bottom nut).   The picture below on the left shows the moisture on the top of the stuffing box.  This was at least one source the bilge water on Sarah.

Our first problem was to find a wrench of sufficient size to work the nuts on the stuffing box.  We measured the nut with a micrometer to be about 2-1/2".  I have a Channel Locks adjustable wrench that is large enough.  However that type of wrench would be difficult if not impossible to use on the nut.  Through one of the service shops at the marina I acquired a large pipe wrench, shown in the picture on the right.

     Even with that wrench and Martin's small size it was still not possible to effectively work on the stuffing box.  We finally removed the port side pulley for the steering cable and Martin could squeeze in between the rudder stop and the generator battery box to get the wrench on the nuts with some leverage.

     The result is the picture on the right.  The stuffing box has been tightened up about one full turn and fitting cleaned up with a wire brush.  As of now there is no detectable leak through the rudder stuffing box.

If it starts to leak again it will finally be time to repack the fitting.  Hopefully that is a year or two off.

Before departing Lago, PT in the spring of 2007 I had the Sopromar Yard attempt to re-pack this stuffing box (it had begun a slight leak after the Med Cruise in 2006).  They also had great difficulty in getting close enough to the gland to effectively clean out the old packing material.  They removed as much as they could then put in as much fresh packing as would fit.