hello all, since this is my first post i feel i should introduce myself. my name is bronson, i live in annapolis md and i have owned a tandem AI for 6 days now. i was out in the strongest wind in about 5 trips about 2 hours ago (monday afternoon), also i was by myself for the first trip so far. the wind was about 12-15 mph (i haven't learned the whole knots thing yet so please bare with me) and i had the boat really moving, in fact i was leaning so hard that i was a little scared to take out my phone and check my gps to see how fast i was registering since i was by myself and didn't want to take away my attention (plus it was a little wet with the speed and all the waves) but next time i will try to figure out how fast i was actually moving. so i'm healed over pretty far and the left ama was mostly buried in the water. after about what seemed like 10 mins straight in this direction i figured i should prolly turn around and go fast the other direction.
first problem... i immediately realized that the rudder wouldn't hold me steady going back with the wind going across from port to starboard. the rudder held me just fine going in completely the opposite direction but i kept trying to go back and the rudder would give out as soon as it would heal over any. i eventually tried to pull the down line all the way out and cleat it down but this barely worked for about 20 seconds more and as soon as it would heal more it just turned all the way back to the left and into the wind in the other direction and wouldn't hold that edge at all. is there a magic trick to it or what am i doing wrong. the rudder was fine in the other direction and fine for non healed over wind or paddling/peddling in that direction but whenever pressure would be put on the rudder it would try to come up. once i PEDDLED back to shore (i will get to that shortly) i checked out the rudder and whenever it was fully turned to the right (the steering controls) the rudder didn't take hardly any force to make it like it was doing the stow motion and would just come up... the only thing i can think of is that after cleating down the down rudder line after pulling it all the way out that there is some other steering technique to keep it turned all the way to the right??? any one else experienced this at all...? kinda annoying to think that it can only go fast in one direction...
second problem... i snapped the little nylon screw that holds the diagonal pivoting cross brace to the rear left aka while under some 10-12 mph wind and had to scramble to turn it into the wind, jump up to the front to furl up the sail then pull in the amas and peddle all the way back home like 1.5 miles in wind...
should i go get metal screws and nuts from the hardware store to prevent this from happening again? i replaced it with one of the extras in the parts bag i was given by the nice hobie salesman but how long before they all start snapping?? not cool to have these break while trying to actually sail in some decent wind, cuz as soon as it broke the port rear aka came out of its deck mounted bar thing and the port ama tried to swim away,, it was kinda dangerous and scary and happened very quickly.
thanks for hearing me out and besides these 2 issues i just had the thing is amazing... a little wet when actually in wind but still really fun nonetheless. plus the wife really loves it and said it was a good purchase decision while giving it 2 thumbs up. you know that is the best part, right??