How often do you have to calibrate your hydraulic steering??

[belizesailor]

Originally Posted by ejlindahl

FWIW I daysailed on a ~1995 Catana ~48' that had this problem. The owner made up a tie rod out of tubing so the rudders were always aligned. ....

My boat has a large diameter Teleflex cable that ties the rudders together, so no need for a straight line path for a tie bar (good thing too because there is no such path without a chain saw). If they get a bit out of alignment I can feel it in the steering. This does not happen often. When it does, I can just depressurize the rams (or usually just one, one per rudder) and the Teleflex cable pushes them back into alignment. I visually check them in the water or hauled each season and tweak if necessary, but usually only once every few years....conveniently about the same frequency I need to do some type of maintenance anyway.

Another upside to this, or a tie bar, is that one ram could fail and I would still have steering of both rudders. One ram is plenty strong for steering in most conditions, but 2 gives some redundancy.

Hmmm...that Teleflex cable is 16 years old now...probably should put a preemptive replacement on the refit list.

[FSMike]

Catman -
Thanks.