Hi Brian, There are differing views on wet rudders. Mine fills up with seawater over the season - the first few seasons I drilled a hole near the bottom and let it drain while hauled out for the winter (don't want it to freeze and break the rudder). Each spring I filled the hole, sanded, barrier coat and paint. A year ago I installed threaded bronze fitting so that I can plug it with a set screw instead of drilling and patching each year. My guess is a previous owner on your boat was doing something similar, exploring your rudder for water and perhaps poorly or not at all repairing the holes afterwards. Depending on how you use the boat (e.g. offshore vs. coastal cruising) and where, getting it rebuilt may be a good idea or might be unnecessary - e.g. is getting help and a tow reasonable if it was to fail? The main concern would be if it is still structurally sound or if the metal components are too corroded and could fail at some point which is hard to tell without opening it up and rebuilding it. There are lots of different opinions on how likely a problem is but nearly all older boats have wet rudders it seems and they don't appear to fail very often on the C&Cs at least as far as I know.
Nathan S/V Wisper Lynn MA 1981 C&C 34 CB
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