[Attachment(s) from davi.rozgonyi@... [amelyachtowners] included below]
Hi All! This is my first post, I think, but I'm Davi, owner of SM #56, SY Wake. Recently I've had a strange steering tracking problem maybe you could give me some insight into...Any advice will be most appreciated!
Recently I had my boat short hauled for a bottom clean. Went well, professional people, an hour out and done gentle as could be...I watched/supervised the whole thing. Then I motored out in perfectly calm wind and sea, no current, and noticed that I was holding the wheel at the position in the pic (about 10-15 degrees to port) in order to motor straight ahead! There was a slight pressure like weather helm (with no weather). If I released the wheel, it would slowly turn back till the top spoke was in the correct position for center rudder, stay there without any help, and the boat itself would slowly start turning to starboard. It felt like I was motoring with a centered rudder but dragging something from my starboard side, basically.
Got to an anchorage and spent two days playing around, but also diving the hull. Scraped and cleaned the patches under the lift straps. Absolutely nothing that was dragging. There is a small protruding transducer on the starboard side that sticks out an inch or two, but it's quite close to centerline (a few feet max), and I can't see how that would either drag much or that I wouldn't have noticed it before... I also don't see how this could be a steering cable issue simply because it 'feels' like the rudder is centered, and the wheel stays naturally in that position like it used to, but the boat turns. Before this, the wheel stayed in the center and the boat went straight for miles and miles without touching the wheel (under motor, calm conditions).
What gives???
