> My old boat had a kick up rudder - fiberglass blade and aluminum pivot
> assembly.
> Although it was not affected by water I did eventually have problems with
> wear
> of the mechanism and it would kick up at inopportune times. It may be that
> to
> have a really robust rudder, it will have to be a one piece affair.
>
>
Hi Gang,
I think Dave may very well be right; maybe this is a tempest in a teapot. Is
this just a rumor that we're propagating? How many people have actually broken
their rudders? Where did it fail?
I did all that stuff to my P-19 rudder just because I had to strip it anyway
and glassing is easy work for me. My rudder wasn't in bad shape, just a
little weathered. I glassed the place where the bolt goes thru because I have
cracked many a solid mahogany rudder blade on my racing dinghies there. The
usual repair for the racing dinghies is to dowel it and reinforce it with
glass.
The reinforcing plates between the upper and lower half however, were another
matter. The existing fiberglass plates had serious stress cracks in them.
Alumimum plates installed right over the fiberglass was a good solution
(Thanks to Jerry B. for his help on that)
Regards,
Judy B.