Mike,
Funny you should ask. Last week I was out enjoying a beautiful sail when the
entire bottom portion of the rudder cracked and floated away. I dropped all
of the sails, fired up the motor, and retrieved the severed appendage. I
took it home to conduct a post mortem and found that the outer boards of the
top half of the rudder assembly were made of thin wood and stapled (yes,
stapled) to a wooden piece in the middle. The outer boards broke off
completely just above where the big nut and bolt holding the two pieces
together goes. The interior wood part broke at the same place (on its
extreme lower end where it is the most slender). I have ordered a
replacement from IM and will fabricate my own rudder out of parts made of
more durable materials in the future. The rudder was presenting stress
cracks on the outer boards prior to breaking. I naively figured the
integrity of the interior wood part would hold it all together. No, the P15
rudder is not infallible.
Chris Heidrich
P15 2153 Tetra
Aurora, CO
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