Gene's question is timely since the reason I'm trying to drop my rudder now is to fix the leaking. I observed weeping at last year's haul-out, drilled drainage holes, and got about 1/2 cup of reddish rusty smelly water.
My Vancouver surveyor told me water in rudders of old boats is very common, and he didn't seem too concerned with it. Said to drop the rudder at next haul-out to dremel around where the stock enters the top of the rudder and then epoxy that up with Gflex or something similar. The water usually gets in from the stock entry since the stresses end up cracking the fiberglass there. At the yard this week we drilled two 2" hole saw holes. One low, where tapping revealed a void - that one showed some water is traveling through the void, and wetting the outer edge of foam, but not traveling through the closed cell foam - the foam looked pretty good. The other hole was higher, near the stock. No water found at this one, and no void, but we were able to see the stock and plate. The welds look good and the stock has only minor rust marks. The plate is brownish/black, but the yard manager said that's probably a lower grade of stainless used. I don't think the LF38 has 3 "fingers" coming out from the stock like the 37+ does, I think it's one contiguous plate. Since the yard manager thought the rudder looks pretty good, our plan is to drop it to dry it out a bit more and then seal it up to try to stop the water ingress - and having the rudder dropped will make the fiberglass repairs of the hole saw holes + void easier. Foss Foam will make new rudders for about $5k (for this size), in about 4 weeks time, shipped from FL. A rebuild costs about almost that much. If you wanted to do a rudder replacement it'd also be worth checking with Southshore Yachts because they list some C&C rudders (with 4 week wait time - I wonder if they're just contracting with Foss to make a template/design they have). A guy next to me in the boatyard with an older full keel, skeg protected rudder is replacing his rudder with a Foss because his rudder was a mess - the fiberglass skin cracked in multiple places and a prior owner tried to fix it by fiberglassing over, but didn't grind back all the gelcoat and fiberglassed over gelcoat in places. -Patrick 1984 C&C Landfall 38 Seattle, WA On Wed, Apr 20, 2016 at 5:23 AM, <cnc-list-requ...@cnc-list.com> wrote: > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > From: David Knecht <davidakne...@gmail.com> > To: CnC CnC discussion list <cnc-list@cnc-list.com> > Cc: > Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2016 08:22:58 -0400 > Subject: Re: Stus-List Rudder replacement/repair > Water in the rudder seems to be really common. My rudder was rebuilt > before I bought the boat. I think surveyors tend to overdo this as my > metal also looked fine once the rudder was opened up. I am curious about > the foam in Josh’s pictures. I would have thought it would keep water from > accumulating inside if it was closed cell foam. Was it actually wet? > Also, I discovered last weekend that when my was rebuilt, they did not fill > the interior with foam because we saw water weeping out of the trailing > edge and when we drilled into the middle, a large stream of water drained > out for about 15 minutes. I am going to have the yard open a hole and fill > the interior with foam. The alternative to foam would be to drill a small > hole every fall and drain it, then plug. Thoughts? Dave > > Aries > 1990 C&C 34+ > New London, CT >
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