Sailing Sasha
New Member
Hi everybody, last fall I bought my first real sailboat, a Pearson 24! Unfortunately the day I bought it and took it for a sail a piece of fiberglass delaminated from the rudder. When I took the boat out of the water for the season, I discovered that it actually is a solid wooden rudder, and a previous owner had apparently slapped some fiberglass patches on it (which is what peeled off). Upon close inspection the wood has many deep cracks (see photos). There are even some cracks near the lower pintle/gudgeon; if I grab the rudder with two hands I can flex it somewhat (where the cracks sorta open up when I put pressure on it). Also, the whole thing is warped so clearly a total rebuild would be a good idea.
But this brings me to the purpose of this post
To totally remake the rudder would take time, and since it is permanently affixed to the trailing edge of the keel it would take me a lot of work simply to remove it. Since sailing season is upon us and the rudder does technically still work, I'm wondering if I can simply sand off old paint, slap some epoxy on it and call it good enough for now. This way I can go have fun on my boat this summer, and not waste weeks or months repairing it during the summer, and then in the fall I could work on removing it and repair it properly over the winter. My main fear is that with those fairly deep cracks in the kinda punky looking wood, is it a concern that my rudder may snap off when sailing hard?
So my question to you all is do you think it is
reasonable to try and patch it up for the summer, or is there a big risk of it breaking in half? And if a "good enough" repair is a viable option, how would you suggest I go about it? Am I overly worried and just paint would be fine? Or try and put some epoxy or similar hard filler to reinforce it?
I've attached a couple of photos to show the condition of the wood with some up-close views of where it attaches to the keel. Any input would be much appreciated! I would absolutely love to sail it ASAP if a patch job is sufficient, but I want to make sure I'm being smart about it.
But this brings me to the purpose of this post
To totally remake the rudder would take time, and since it is permanently affixed to the trailing edge of the keel it would take me a lot of work simply to remove it. Since sailing season is upon us and the rudder does technically still work, I'm wondering if I can simply sand off old paint, slap some epoxy on it and call it good enough for now. This way I can go have fun on my boat this summer, and not waste weeks or months repairing it during the summer, and then in the fall I could work on removing it and repair it properly over the winter. My main fear is that with those fairly deep cracks in the kinda punky looking wood, is it a concern that my rudder may snap off when sailing hard? So my question to you all is do you think it is
I've attached a couple of photos to show the condition of the wood with some up-close views of where it attaches to the keel. Any input would be much appreciated! I would absolutely love to sail it ASAP if a patch job is sufficient, but I want to make sure I'm being smart about it.
