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Puca, heading south from Chesapeake Bay: the rudder

Posted 1 month, 27 days ago

Puca, heading south from Chesapeake Bay: the rudder
I made a quick trip down to Titusville this past weekend. I left Richmond early Saturday morning. I was back in Richmond Monday at around 1am. Thank God for satellite radio. When my boat was hauled, I had noticed something troubling about my rudder. The rudder is wooden laminate and it seemed to be very soft in some spots and delaminating in another spot. My first thought was to remove the visible rot and patch with epoxy. Unfortunately, in my mind anyway, that would be a temporary fix only. It seems like, to me anyway, that once wood starts to rot, it'll keep on going. Patching with epoxy would not be a permanent solution. My friend Don down at Westland Marina suggested I make my own fiberglass rudder, using the original as a template. I've never taken on a fiberglass project so large, but I'll give it a try. Especially since I tried to find a replacement fiberglass rudder on the Internet and the only one I could find cost $1500... Not too surprising since the boat is 36 years old. The rudder is transom hung and uses gudgeons and pintles to attach which simplifies my task ahead (no rudder post.) So I strapped the rudder to the roof of my car and it's now propped up in my back yard, leaning against my shed (see pics). The rudder is tall. It comes up to my nose and I'm 5'8". It probably weighs 60 lbs? Full Story »

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