I had hoped to get this sorted before my parents and K visited for the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta, but alas this was not to be so. On the first day K was here, we emptied out the port locker, and she went down the hole to see what could be done. Turns out the easiest thing to do was yank the whole bar/arm out, pull the pin out of the end, and fit the pin into the registration arm. It’s not a screw pin either – it just has a series of grooves and ridges running from top to bottom. A bit of Loctite-equivalent was applied, the pin was shoved in to the hole, and the bar was pushed back over (there’s a cup-fit at both ends of the bar) the rounded knob.
Swung the rudder from side to side, and all is good. There’s a discrepancy in the reading – the autohelm thinks rudder is applied when it’s centered, but that’s easy to fix, just have to read the manual. Also damped the responsiveness; the autohelm was correcting far too often, which leads to power drain. Now it helms more like a human would, letting the boat swing and come back by herself.
Cost? 1 tube of Loctite, and a pint of Guiness for K.