Hardware Backer Plates - Sunfish Rudder Gudgeon

28 Jul 24:

The "new style" (since 1971) rudder assembly on the AMF/Alcort Sunfish attaches to a stainless steel gudgeon. It is held secure with 4 marine grade stainless, self tapping machine screws and washers. In the early days a small amount of marine adhesive was used, more recently larger amounts of 3M 5200 adhesive have been used, to the point where we question if the screws are even needed.

There is a secret inside the boat, an aluminum backer plate that spreads the load from the screws. Shown below is the plate that is shaped to fit over the cove on the transom where the old style rudder assembly carriage bolt used to be, the indentation shown in the picture above. 

For some reason AMF/Alcort did not change the shape of their molds, they just kept making hulls with a cove on the transom for almost 20 more years. Then sometime in the late 1980s, possibly when ownership changed hands, the cove was finally flattened out, and the backer plate flattened as well. 

We dug this plate out of the parts pile, it is headed off to Colorado!