J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Loose Rudder

We have a problem with a loose rudder causing a lot of slop in steerage. It's an older boat (#36) and the pintles move in the gudgeons causing course variations of as much as 5 degrees in light air. Has anyone else experienced this problem? What's the fix?

I just fixed a similar problem on "Diva," hull #468. We found that the problem was wear in the gugeons, causing clunking, sloppy steering especially in light air, and generally bad performance. The cheapest solution was to remove the rudder and hardware and have a machine shop drill out the gudgeons a few thousandths and make new pintels. Now it drives like new.

HELP! I need, for my recently purchased elderly J-30, a whole new set of gudgeons and pintles. TPI doesn't have them, and are not helpful on where to turn. Can anyone help?