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...................................................--- Tiller Clamcleat ---

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I read about using a self-releasing Clamcleat to hold the swing rudder down and wanted to put one on our Mac. I didn't want to mess with the rigging until we had sailed some, but felt this was one mod I wanted to do up front.

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I ordered one from Duckworks, who has good prices on a number of things and pretty prompt delivery.

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I found that the holes to mount it came close enough to the mounting holes for the cleat that was on the tiller that I decided to try using those and mounting it on top of the stock cleat. It seemed to work fine and did release a couple times during our first 5 day sail and it was probably a good thing as we forgot to raise the rudder a couple times and this saved damage to it. I never had it release when it shouldn't have.

Want to see how it works? Click ( HERE ).

I'm happy with this mod and will leave it on the boat.

The picture above shows our Rudder Craft rudder and where the up-haul and down-haul lines attach.

The down-haul line is two parts. Up at the cam cleat it is a line and that then becomes a SS cable which is show above. The end of the cable has a loop in it and the bolt shown above goes through the rudder and attaches the cable end at the loop to the rudder. The loop is captured by a large diameter flat washer, with another washer on the rudder side of the loop. You can also see two smaller black rubber washers the go on both sides of the rudder. Finally another flat washer and a nylon-nut that is tightened just enough so as to not totally collapse the SS loop tight between the two flat washers.

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