Putting in some new rudder-line tubes

Using some ropes suspended from the ceiling, I've positioned my boat at a comfortable work height:

The old lines had some useful information printed on them:

(O.D. stands for "outer diameter," and I.D. stands for "inner diameter.")

I googled Sun-Rise Polyurethane Tube and learned that it is a Taiwanese company.  That makes sense, considering that this boat was manufactured in China.  I browsed the Internet for a similar product manufactured domestically, and found tubing for sale at Grainger that was manufactured by Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics of Akron, Ohio.  I ordered some tygothane tubing in the closest British-unit size to the old tubing that they had: 1/4 inch O.D., 3/16 inch I.D.:

100 feet was the smallest quantity of this tubing I could buy.  That means I'll have plenty left over after I cut the two rudder-line tubes, each of which will be around 10 feet long.  If anybody would like some of this tubing, let me know in the Comments section and we'll talk.


I cut two lengths of tubing with a few extra inches so I'd have some excess to work with at each end.  I used a long piece of wire as a "needle" to pull the tubing into place.  I did so in two stages--from the cockpit to the hole I cut:

...and from the hole I cut to the rudder hatch at the stern:

I'd drilled a little hole through the end of the tubing through which I could insert the wire.


Now that the two pieces of tubing are in in position, it's time to cement them in place.  That'll be the topic of my next post.