[quote=jonathan162]Yeah, ignore the "cotter key" business - that's just a weird name, like the English calling a car's trunk the "boot". You'll find the odd person who calls a cotter pin a cotter key, but it's not something different.
There's a risk that someone here may want to descend into an analysis of the relative material characteristics (i.e. shear), but as a rule I wouldn't recommend using metal - stainless or aluminum - for that pin. You want plastic, something with about as low a shear strength as possible. As with rudder locks (depending on the design, of course), these are parts you [i]want[/i] to fail - in the event you hit something and the rudder doesn't kick up - in order to save the rudder blade, casting, or transom.[/quote]
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