Hout Bay was not that far away and they managed to enter the bay. It was blowing a good fifty knots at the time, Jean phoned the NSRI, station 8 Sea Rescue and they went out and brought the yacht into the saftey of Hout Bay Harbour.
The boat was a member of the then ARC World fleet, it was a few days before the trade closed for the Christmas break, we got the materials into stock and worked over the period and got the boat back into the water in time for the restart of the rally.
A new shaft and lower pintal were made locally, an engineer fitted the gear and rudder, plus quite a lot of upgrades were made around the area where the rudder shaft entered the boat.
Note: the cut out in the rudder allows the rudder to be swung to either side and dropped.
We now have the CNC cut files to the Irwin 54 rudder and can fabricate to order. Shipping world wide should not be a problem.
Roy
