Alan S. Glos
Well-Known Member
OK, here is a chance for Sunfish Forum readers to nerd-out on Sailfish/Sunfish trivia:
The first wood Sailfish and Sunfish rudder blades were low aspect, almost rectangular "elephant ear" shapes. I have bought/sold/and gifted several of them in my
20+ years of messing about in this market. See photos of the latest find that I plan to gift to Kent Lewis, aka "Signal Charlie". All of these rudders I have seen have a small hole in the middle of the blade with a nice mahogany plug that fills in the hole. The question is why the hole in the first place? My best guess is that it has something to do with how the blades were produced. Maybe the rough cut rudder blank with a template on top was bolted down to a base through the hole and a router was used to follow the template to make the final shape, and then the hole was repaired with a mahogany plug. But this is only a guess.
Does anybody actually know why these old blades had a hole in them? If you don't know, feel free to be creative (or lie like a rug.)
Alan Glos
Cazenovia, NY
The first wood Sailfish and Sunfish rudder blades were low aspect, almost rectangular "elephant ear" shapes. I have bought/sold/and gifted several of them in my
20+ years of messing about in this market. See photos of the latest find that I plan to gift to Kent Lewis, aka "Signal Charlie". All of these rudders I have seen have a small hole in the middle of the blade with a nice mahogany plug that fills in the hole. The question is why the hole in the first place? My best guess is that it has something to do with how the blades were produced. Maybe the rough cut rudder blank with a template on top was bolted down to a base through the hole and a router was used to follow the template to make the final shape, and then the hole was repaired with a mahogany plug. But this is only a guess.
Does anybody actually know why these old blades had a hole in them? If you don't know, feel free to be creative (or lie like a rug.)
Alan Glos
Cazenovia, NY