Projection 762 Help please?

   Hi,
When I bought my boat I was already a little concerned with the amount of play on the rudder - during our first season we have clocked up around 2000 miles, and having had the boat craned out earlier this week it seems to be a little worse.
The simple movement of the rudder shaft in its bearings is bound to cause some wear, but whenever there's weather helm the length of the rudder will act as a big lever putting significant forces (and consequently accelerated wear) on the bearings. Bearing wear tends to be exponential, ie the worse the fit the more quickly it wears, so this might explain why it's suddenly got worse for you over the past season. The other possibility is that the nut that holds everything together is coming undone!
I haven't yet dropped my rudder from its tube and bearings but I suspect I will have to do it before the start of next season's racing. I can tell you that the lower bearing is made from nylon and will probably have been bespoke lathe-cut to fit the shaft and hull. Finding someone to do the work may be the biggest problem, and I'm in no way certain that two boats are alike. If we could acertain that we have identical bearings maybe we could join forces in the hunt for an engineer.
Incidentally, I did ask the owner of the 'Projection Yachts' name (can't remember his name without going through the entire forum) about just this problem but although he promised to write back I never did get a reply...
Any thoughts would be welcomed.