R&R was ordered late in '95 with delivery in Jan '96 with the original 1st gen rudder. It was acquired to trailer cruise the Great Lakes and spent the next two years being fitted for and waiting its chance. My brother in law and I had available a C30 to borrow that we'd cruised on before, but it was on the market.
In '97, the boat was ready other than a helm problem that left the boat vulnerable to easily rounding up in a breeze. Fortunately the C30 was still available. By the '98 season, the C30 had sold but a rudder upgrade had been released to solve the helm issues of the 250 so R&R made its first trek to the Great Lakes and did fairly well except it had a ton of helm effort.
R&R continued to cruise the next two years ('99 & '00) but it was frustrating that the auto helm could only be used in light air conditions because of the stiffness of the helm. After the '00 cruise, Catalina was called for help. It was boat show season and while a reply was waited for, thought was put to it and from Hobie Cat experience it was known that the helm could be lightened by balancing the rudder by raking the bottom forward. Rudder head mods were performed and tested by the time Gerry Douglas from Catalina called.
He told me that he'd designed a balanced 3rd rudder that would lighten the helm and that it was available at cost but that it would only be available in a blade. I reported that my problems might have been solved by providing some balance to the 2nd rudder and he asked how that had been done. We talked rudders for a good while muchly over the blade/beaching issue with my sharing a strong reluctance toward a blade rudder because a beaching rudder was a buying decision issues when considering the 250 for my needs. To my question of why had Catalina given up on a beaching rudder, he claimed too many warranty issues from improper operation at which I argued that more likely the problem was the poorly designed rudder hold down that didn't properly keep the rudder fully engaged to the rudder head. Note: additional thoughts on this below.
The 2001 cruise season provided two cruises, one with a lady friend who when a breeze was blowing struggled with the helm albeit it was far better than it had been. The auto pilot liked the helm better but remained unhappy at times so to prepare for the next season, the 3rd gen rudder and its promises to solve the helm problems was acquired.
During 2002 cruise, both rudders were aboard to compare. Found quickly was the 3rd generation was indeed light on the helm but had inadequate control for Great Lakes cruising. With it, R&R was back to her old rounding up tricks experienced with the 1st generation rudder and this rudder drove the auto pilot crazy chasing its tail. The 2nd was reshipped and the 3rd was put into moth balls where it remains today.
The last day of that cruise was the clincher, with lady crew and a sixty five mile trek with a twenty five knot quartering wind and 5-6 foot swell, I helmed twelve hours of arm breaking effort without a break as neither crew or auto had the strength.
By 2003, I was married again and committed to a lady crew for at least a portion of future cruising time and had to get the helm righteous. A decision was made to tackle the last hurdle into taming the helm... correcting several design problems of the Edson Small Boat Steering System.
After installing the open wire conversion, the grandkids spent a weekend on the lake with us and in a fairly stiff breeze, our four year old granddaughter was steering the boat effortlessly, a convincing testament the helm had been tamed.
During the following Great Lakes 2003 cruise, the auto pilot was ecstatic with joy (most sailors affectionately think of the auto pilot as a personage with feelings). One leg of the cruise took us across Lake Huron's widest section, a one hundred mile stretch and with a good breeze the auto pilot handled the helm task the entire way without any of its traditional grumbling laboring sounds from the past. Auto had helmed for nineteen hours, we'd run nav lights all night, played the stereo a good bit and run the gps and radio the whole time and had battery power to spare.
We departing Michigan 11 am and arriving Canada 6 am the next morning with my new bride clutching a barf bag almost the whole way. She was fine the rest of the cruise and did quite a bit of helming and had absolutely no problems.
That summer was divided into two cruises with my brother in law again sharing one and he commented... "what on earth did you do to the helm... it is fantastic."
From left to
right, 1st - 2nd - 3rd generation
Additional Thoughts
I believe I've a reasonably accurate view of events precipitating the release of the 3rd gen rudder. What is known for sure is of course that a 3rd rudder was designed to solve excessive heavy helm of the 2nd. It appears that possibly there were warranty issues for both Catalina and Edson involved that pushed the creation of the 3rd. Known is that prior to the design of the 3rd, Catalina had discontinued the popular wheel steering option and Edson had been suffering many warranty claims on its wheel system for the 250, probably because of excess helm torque of the 2nd rudder. Whether the discontinuance was Catalina's, Edson's or a mutual decision who knows but it seems based on National Association Forum chatter that the discontinuance was not received well by prospective buyers, which may have pressured Catalina to find a way to return it to the option list. Also what is known is when it returned there were two changes; from Catalina was the 3rd rudder and no beaching option and from Edson was the change from the single cable push/pull to a two cable pull/pull system.