rudder discussions

I think it has to do with the fact that the rudder it attached to the keel. No part of the rudder is forward of the rudder shaft.


When it isn't, like a fin-keel boat with spade rudder, I think that there isn't enough lateral surface area back aft to provide lateral stability, so they have to add area back there. They might add this area forward of the rudder shaft to balance the helm somewhat.

Just a guess.

I can say from experience that the Ariel tracks like its on rails, but my 35' C&C could probably turn a 180 *inside* the same turn by the Ariel. (it would be close)

Seen a fair number of keel-hung rudders (on chunky wooden cruisers) come thru the yard - and yer right, nearly all of them seem too small compared with the balanced and skeg rudder. Especially older boats with the ear-shaped rudder like on the A/Cs.

One reason may be that the force needed to turn a barn door rudder probably increases exponentially by fractions of inches, so they can't get much bigger than designed without getting impossible to turn. Wouldn't mind hearing a partial dissertation on this subject. Maybe a bigger rudder would be more efficient, it's that its size has to be compromised.

I'm surprised that the Ariel turns so sluggish, given its cutaway keel profile. That's a good thing for tracking as you say. it's like my Dodge truck compared with a Honda. A little more sprightly turning and a tighter radius would be better. 338 does intend to try out the constellation alternative of Alberg's on page 148 in the Manual.

imco, A rudder of either shape built modern with a slight arc to its sides and coming to a sharper trailing edge would make it more efficient - and one might expect it to liven up the steering, right? ;)

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Not going to convince the traditionalists on this forum who must imitate past methods when reviving their boats. If the Ariel represents the great historical leap forward from wood to plastic then why wasn't the rudder included? (well, you know me, I think Everett couldn't be bothered.) The traditional A/C rudder is obviously better matched to a wood boat. A composite rudder more suited to Ariel/Commander provenance HAS to be considered the correct upgrade. It can't be argued if it makes for a better handling boat! Underscored. My deflector shields are up.

Check this out:
"The main difference between a 'thin flat plate' and a NACA foil is that the foil will generate lift, ie power, at a higher angle versus the boat's direction. Where a plain flat rudder will stall and simply slow you down somewhere around +/- 5 to 10 degrees from center, a NACA foil will be effective over maybe twice that range. Your boat's rudder will work better. Tacking will be easier. A little bit of weather helm translates into more sideways 'push' upwind." Craig O'Donnell
google >Foil FAQ< www.boat-links.com/foilfaq.html


A rudder creates drag evertime you move it. I believe a foil shaped rudder would even help the keel create lift and not stall the asymetical heeled shape out, which seems to happen alot on one boat I know.

Hope to 'generate' not only lift but some discussion...

On haul out, the rudder looked pretty good. It was covered in the same slime that had built up over the rest of the hull;

http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/us...Rudderscum.jpg

The straps you see were added by the prior owner, Herb Tucker and appear to be holding up well. I did not remove them, but sanded them down, and they seemed to be in good shape. There is a split in the rudder along the seam where 2 planks were joined (I can see at least 5 bronze rods (pins?) that run through from the end.

The split had been filled with some kind of Calk on the last haul out, which seemed like a good compromise to me.

Here is the rudder after pressure wash;

http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/us...l21Rudder2.jpg

I sanded it, coated it with epoxy. I coated it with epoxy, faired it in and painted it.

Here is what it looks like now;
http://sailfar.net/gallery/albums/us...ulout_0049.jpg

I felt like the rudder was in pretty good shape. The straps that Herb added seem like a reasonable precaution to prevent the end of the rudder (beyond the seam) from sliding off.

Hi Gents - Hopefully there are pictures of my new quarter sawn Honduran mahogony rudder attached to this post. For reasons previously discussed regarding wiggle room for wood expansion etc (and before reading Ebb's recommendation to make it out of one piece) - we opted to make the rudder out of two pieces. Everything else including the bronze pins and bolt boxes was made to match the original - except for the two stainless straps that were peened on there - maybe at some point by PO to hold the old one together.

Now I'm wondering. Should I just give the thing a couple of coats of penetrating epoxy and leave 'er be? Should I bother putting some glass over the seam of the two pieces?

After loading my rudder photos on Ebb's Photo Gallery thread - I found this thread.

If anyone has advice on finishing this rudder and would be so kind as to go over to that thread and weigh in, I'd appreciate it.

I removed my rudder and it was in great shape so I was in a similar position that you are. After asking around I decided to leave it alone and just paint it with bottom paint. I considered CPES but decided against it after some credible people told me to leave it alone.

http://triton381.com/forum/viewtopic...128aaf4b82de9c

http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...0Starboard.jpg

http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...emoved%201.jpg

I loaded up the wood with sealer(4 or 5 coats asI recall)put on bottom primrt and bottom paint. Swatchesof the bottom paint have come off at years end, but the mshogany is stilll solid after about 10 years in fresh water(Emersion in fresh water is hrder on mahogany than in salt water, or so I understand.The wood should not be encased in glass because the woodwill rot in my opinion- particlarly if the vessel is hauled where it freezes

Theis, what did you use as the initial sealer?

Hmm, If I messed it up, I meant to say that the OB model Ariel rudder can be made with a SINGLE piece of rod. Since there is no cutout for a prop it is appropriate and much stronger than the two piece bend rod rudder that I understand ALL Ariels had on them. OB Ariels had an insert/plug in the aperture. Or some didn't.

The mahogany part of the rudder, the blade, if it is a traditional stack of planks, should not be a single piece of wood. Although at least one on these pages is just that. (Theiss' ?) The reason is that woodworkers believe a single plank can absorb water and warp in relation to the log it was cut from. Two boards stacked edge to edge are less likely. And three planks even more unlikely to warp. You reverse the grain when stacking. If you have to have a wood rudder, noble mahogany is the best next to the king of woods, teak. Because neither is known for warping much.

Whether you glue the planks together - or use a rubber adhesive - or merely use a bedding compound is still pretty much open for discussion, isn't it? Whatever I did I would still seal all surfaces with thinned epoxy so that water absorbsion is equalized. And it's a good primer for subsequent paint. The rudder will swell some in the water (and shrink some when out of the water), so I would allow for that by not sweating the long thru-bolts/allthread fasteners - or you'll just be crushing wood fibers where you needn't. And when dried out the planks will be loose. Just snug on the nuts.

As I understand it, as long as you keep a wood rudder clean and painted nothing much is going to happen to it. So it doesn't need to be encapsulated.
If you have an old rudder, that's showing its age - then a quick fix and a new lease can be had with fiberglass and epoxy.

I went through the same discussion on what to seal my new rudder with. Some of the guys said to use "Old Salem Sealer"; I did and it has done really well; I can keep an eye on the wood an fasteners; I don't even anti-foul it.
In fresh water we swim quite a bit and I just wipe it down with a sponge.

As I recall. it was the Interlux wood sealer available at West

Sorry for the misquote, ebb - must be the acetone.

Thanks for that thread link, Tim. Very enlightening and recommended to members. And a beautiful rudder.

So - I think I'll go with the epoxy prime coat (Awlgrip 545 or similar) and then bottom paint for the finish. Forget about glassing it in for protection.

The remaining question is strength of the rudder blade at the seam between the two pieces. Tim, your rudder looks like 3 pieces? But it was encapsulated all this time so ostensibly the glass added strength.

I've got the three original drift pins in there and the the grain is reversed on the stacking of the two pieces - the seam is filled with bedding compound.

Don't know why I am so nervous about the strength - should I be??

It has been observed that a stand alone skeg or balanced rudder has enormous forces acting on it that a keel hung rudder doesn't experience.

Trying to remember, but the rudders mentioned on this site don't talk much if at all about the wood falling off - it is about metal: the shoe has a number of issues, corrosion at the bolt connection of the planks to the shaft, the shaft corroding up in the tube, the shaft wearing out the bearing at the tiller head. The original rudder engineering seems to have done just fine for four decades. Right?

The keel hung rudder is exactly where a rudder should be. Protected, very little stress on the blade, less force needed to steer. Can't back the boat up so good. tho.

Kenarang Ebb Wrote:
"The original rudder engineering seems to have done just fine for four decades. Right?"

This is what I keep coming back to everytime I find something "weird" about my boat which occurs daily. Upon close inspection under the waterline I feel like my boat shouldn't float, but it did, for a long time now. My rudder was in remarkable shape having been encapsulated for so long (at least 32 years) and like I mentioned earlier, I am going to paint it and that's it. Rudders are like chains, the weakest part that gives can cause the entire thing to fail. If the mahogany and bronze components (shaft, etc) are in good shape I would think it's fine without modification.

The old rudder had the metal straps that other owners have mentioned but I'm inclined to agree that they were added afterwards - completely out of line with the water flow.

I'm going to prime that rudder up and bottom paint it and let 'er fly. thanks.

Beautiful rudder there Cup. That mahogony is so nice, seems a shame to cover it up

Hi Guys,

I'm a new owner of Commander 164. Just bought her a month ago. I'm in the Miami area. The boat drifted from her mooring, went aground and half of the wooden rudder is gone. I'd like to know how feasable it would be to remove the rudder while she is in the water. I didn't see this issue addressed in any of the rudder threads. The top of the rudder post looks well above the waterline. It seems like the only issue would be to remove the tiller head and the gudgeon strap. It could take over a week or two to rebuild the rudder. Do you think this is doable in the water. Having her hauled and stored on land for 1 week here would cost $475 I could use that money toward the repair instead. What do you think? Am I overlooking something important?

Barry
Hollywood, FL

CONGRATS on 164!
Commander Fleet has to answer this one.

But how easy is it for you to get at the fastening(s) holding the strap around the rudder post? Lots of bottom paint crud? What's the fastening head - hex, slot heads? Will you be able to turn them? How long can you stay under water?

If the vessel had recent work done on the rudder (so that the strap, if it is indeed still a strap there and not a DFO replacement) is free of decades of buildup) it could be feasible. Got scuba?:rolleyes:

We love crazy schemes around here

How about this:

Run the boat aground in a good spot

Use a mask and snorkel with extension tube

Use a cheap air drill ($10 at Harbor Freight) Borrow a compressor.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=94585

With a wire brush attachment, expose the screw heads

Drill the screws out

Tie a rope on the rudder

Back into deeper water and drop the rudder

Post pictures here

Of course, I've never tried anything like this

while we are on the subject of crazy schemes.. (this might work for both C-164 and Mr Tim's A-24)

what about sistering the current rudder with two plywood skins through bolted over the current rudder? ... I'm thinking 1/4 inch marine plywood precut and painted before installation in the water....:rolleyes: It might work for a season or so..


I think this could be done in shallow water without removing the rudder.

Bill there are times I feel as though the Force guides us here on the forum. I too am thinking of the old plywood sandwhich to get mine to work this summer. I failed to mention in my post that the top shaft did get pulled out of the rudder cap with the force of the twisted rode and I couldn't dive down to ook for it as I was with my family and we were in about 20 feet of water. I was thinking something on the line of (don't laugh and remember this needs to last only a couple months) a steel water pipe to drop down into or put up through the rudder tube then screw on a "T" fitting so that I can have the lateral piece to help spread the load of the rudder. The lateral piece will act like the bronze piece bolted to the original shaft providing support. Then I might sandwhich and through bolt as your diagram suggests to the rudder that is left. This will certainly be a fair-weather sailing repair and I already know I can make it back to my mooring just by the motor in the well if it fails, but if it gets me to September and I get a few sails out of it I'm golden. Plus it's a cheap simple repair and could be done in the grace period at low tide if I dry dock next to the club. My future "new" rudder will have a shaft going all the way down and will be reinforced with FRP somehow so it's bulletproof. I know the buoyancy needs to be as close to nuetral as possible, but my future rudder will be bulletproof possibly at that expence. I still haven't worked out the details on the new one yet as I have this fall and winter to do so.

I'm sure you'll have a viable fix lined up soon... we'll want underwater photos of course:rolleyes: that should be a first on this forum!:)

oh by the way, you might want to look into that commander getting parted out... her rudder may also be a great option in the near term.

here are her sails.... http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/SAILS...mZ250110199285, her logo plates have also found a home on the Lucky Dawg... http://pearsonariel.org/discussion/s...5764#post15764

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Originally Posted by bill@ariel231

I'm sure you'll have a viable fix lined up soon... we'll want underwater photos of course:rolleyes: that should be a first on this forum!:)

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Underwater pictures huh? How about a bunch taken after she's sitting in the mud at low tide? Besides, have I ever dissapointed in the picture category.:)

Next week is when the festivities will happen if all goes as planned. I have a basic plan in my head right now, but it will not be until I get a real good look that I can proceed. The river we keep the boat in has quite a current, so I may not be able to dive except on the slack tide. If I can't dive, then I have to wait until she's sitting on themud. This may very well be a two tide job. We'll see. Stay tuned.

We need some pix of the rudder being extracted when yer beached - or mudded as the case may be. Bring a shovel.


Rudder neutral buoyancy?
338's 'straight' 1" bronze post and some pieces of 1/8" bar stock (instead of allthread rod and nuts) weigh in (just the metal) at 21#. Wood floats, and would minus some weight if you were going with a stack of planks on a traditional rebuild. On the other hand, I would guess the foam and fiberglass I'm using will probably add to the overall weight. To be honest.

How do you weigh an immersed rudder? Might be good to know.

Thing is, neutral buoyancy isn't really possible if you're going to use 6' of 1" bronze rod for your rudder post! Or have I got it wrong?

How did Carl Alberg figure it?

Thanks for the replies, guys. Since I don't have a manuel yet, everyones posts on the rudder threads gave me all the information I needed. Got my rudder off today at anchor. Went at it with a mask and snorkel and a 7/16 open end wrench tied around my neck with some twine and a vice grip.The bronze strap holding the rudder shaft to the keel was attached with 2 stainless steel bolts with 7/16" nuts. They came off easily as did the tiller head. I appreciate someones comment about opening the slot on the tillerhead by banging in a large screwdriver. Worked for me and came off with just a little prying.
Oh yea, of course I tied the rudder with line, then I yanked the tiller up as far as it could go, went back down, pushed the rudder shaft off of the shoe came back to the cockpit and removed the tillerhead then dropped the rudder.
Anyone need half a rudder?

Barry

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

We need some pix of the rudder being extracted when yer beached

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Oh don't you worry about that. I just hope you guys aren't working off of dial-up.:)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

Rudder neutral buoyancy?.

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As I understand it the shaft should not be taken into account when figuring the density which in turn determines the buoyancy of the rudder as it acts as a pivot point and rests in the shoe, therefore it's weight is insignificant. The blade of the rudder however is allowed to move side to side and can do so either by sinking or floating, but the shaft cannot.
I have read that a well constructed rudder should have the same density as the water it is in. If the rudder is more dense than the water it is in and you are healing 10 degrees lets say, the rudder will have a tendancy to want to sink. This can affect the feel in the tiller and possibly the handling of the boat. There is of course a force against the rudder as the boat is moving through the water which could negate the sinking rudder, but on a light day I think it may be noticable and I see the logic in the argument even if it is a negligible amount of pressure caused by it wanting to sink. If the rudder is less dense than water, then it will have a tendancy to want to float. In that case as you were traveling in the same situation mentioned earlier heeled over, you would be compensating against it's buoyancy. If however the rudder is the same density as the water it is in, then it should not sink or float, but stay where you put it. Of course this isn't taking into account weather-helm, etc. which could make this a moot point, but nontheless it seems like a good argument to me that a well balanced boat has a rudder with the same density as the water it is in even if it takes an America's Cup skipper to notice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

How do you weigh an immersed rudder? Might be good to know.

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You can get the density of the rudder through water displacement if rudder is removed and then find its mass by weighing it then converting. With the mass and volume you can get the density. Compare that to water which is about 1g/cc. More it sinks, less it floats. You would have to subtract the mass of the shaft, but include the "bar stock" that extends into the rudder which might make for a tricky situation. To get the mass of the just the shaft I supppose you could submerge just the shaft end of the rudder into a kiddie pool and measure the amount of overflow somehow and that would give you a pretty accurate volume reading. Then you could find the density of that particular bronze and simply multiply the volume with the ?g/cc to get the mass of the shaft. You could then subtract that from the overall mass of the rudder and shaft and that would give you the mass of the blade and bronze located within the blade.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

Thing is, neutral buoyancy isn't really possible if you're going to use 6' of 1" bronze rod for your rudder post! Or have I got it wrong?

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I have a habit of being wrong more than right and I have no ego to harbor, so if I am wrong or my logic doesn't jive with others, someone chime in.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

How did Carl Alberg figure it?

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Good question, but I know my Typhoon rudder is made of two pieces of plastic that foam was injected into, then the whole thing was covered in FRP. I wonder how much Alberg called for specific construction methods and materials to be used, and how much of that went to the wayside in the search for a cheaper product to produce by the manufacturer. Cape Dory infamously used regular steel backing plates welded to bent steel rebar for its chain plates on the CD-28. These backing plates have been the achiles heel of a world cruiser now that these boats have hung out in salt water environments for the past 20-35 years and have begun (or have) to disinigrate. I don't think Carl would have ordered that up, do you? Someone was looking to save a buck. My boat has no seacocks, surely a stubborn swede with an eye for seaworthiness would not have specified that.

Tim,
OK, basicly if you disregard the weight of the rudder post, it could be figured that in the traditionally designed Alberg rudder of wood, a couple long bolts and a few screws... you have a neutral buoyant rudder there. Wood floats, add some metal and you got neutral. By definition.

On the Foss Foam rudder site they suggest that if you have a n.b. rudder it would be a breeze to remove it in the water. This is where my understanding breaks down - it seems you'd have to leave the rudder post in place for that benefit. I would guess the preponderance of Foss Foam rudders are spade in shape and not keel attached. They have a short ss pipe for the shaft with a couple short welded fins to keep the foam from turning inside the skin. Maybe yer Cape has one of these? Anyway the rudder unit in a modern foam design would be significantly lighter and perhaps easier to remove in water. Remember though, they have to skimp on the plastic and glass which is 3 times heavier than wood and only displaces water.

An Ariel rudder could be removed that way, but its weight will be significant.

On the Foss site they say that a n.b. rudder would reduce "the moment of inertia in the stern." But it would not, if traditional constructed, reduce the weight added to the stern by metal.

Could somebody make an arguement FOR our original rudder in that its metalic weight creates some welcome inertia to ease steering? Dampen steering movement? Would a lighter rudder make for easier steering?

With a thin blade and a 1" diameter bronze rudder shaft it isn't obvious how a lighter rudder could be fashioned.

Still, a neutral buoyancy rudder is a matter of function, not weight, and that kind of thing is what engineer's brains are made of. (To me this urethane foam rudder is "compromise design." The term neutral buoyancy is a quasitech term invented to sell questionable skin and foam and s.s. rudders to the consumer.:p )
Thanks for making it clearer. IF I got it?;)

Good job on the rudder Barry.

Sounds like your rudder has been off before, since you found stainless bolts.

You guys who have taken the rudder off....how was the rudder strap held on?

My strap which had been on since at least 1974 making it most likely original was held on with two pins with a carraige bolt type head on one side and peened ends on the other. I knew that I was going to replace the strap as it was well worn and slightly corroded so I decided to take the destructive route and drill out peened ends until they could be tapped out. Removing the strap was easy once the pins were removed. Then I overdrilled the holes and allowed them to dry out for a while and gave healthy doses of acetone to speed the process up. Once it was completely dry I filled with epoxy, then redrilled the holes to accept the 1/4 bronze bolts I put in to hold the new strap.

More details here.



http://www.ariel24.com/images/rudder...0close%204.jpg

http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...0strap%201.jpg


The new strap fabricated from a 1/8 inch sheet of bronze provided by Ebb.
http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...0strap%206.jpg

http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...0strap%209.jpg

After the epoxy cured and I redrilled the holes, I set the strap in 5200. I used bronze carraige bolts and nuts from Jamestown to hold it in place.
http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...0strap%207.jpg

http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...0strap%208.jpg

Hopefully I will not have to remove the strap when I make my temporary rudder repair as I plan to sandwhich plywood to either side of what's remaining. This winter however, I will be removing the strap to remove what is left of the rudder and will start from scratch. The shoe will stay on as it is bedded in 5200 and I epoxed the bronze pins in place to ensure a watertight, strong bond as I only peened the ends of the pins on the shoe. I hope to fashion a new rudder to Albergs modified design and use a full length bronze shaft ($$$). I also want to make it so that it can be put on and removed without removing the shoe so that I can do repairs in the water. Right now the rudder cannot be lifted high enough to remove it without removing the shoe. This will require a nifty modification to the top of the rudder so that the shaft will clear the shoe, possibly a bolted on piece that is strong, but removable when desired to do so. I'm thinking of epoxying with cloth over marine plywood for the rudder construction, but I still have time to work those details out.

The Contessa 26 and the Flicka were also on my list when I was looking for a bigger boat earlier this year. I always saw the value of the transom hung rudders in terms of simplicity and repair potential. Our rudders are annoyingly less so, but hey, we have overhang and that is sweet!

imho The rudder shoe is a permanent fitting. There should never be a reason to remove it.
The gudgeon is a maintenance fitting if it can be called that. It is what is removed or merely bent out of the way to allow the rudder to be raised out of the shoe and removed.
The gudgeon's main use is to limit the rise of the rudder out of the shoe.
But it is possible to argue that if the gudgeon is substantial, it could allow the rudder to rise above the seat in the shoe. That is it could allow the rudder to rise and still guide it right back down into the seat.

Arguements for this would be that there is more rise available in case of grounding. Depends on what the top limit is. Also if you were persuaded that a delrin or some ultra HDPE washer between the bottom of the shaft and the shoe was an improvement, it could be slipped in and replaced easy. An arguement against is that you could get mud in yer shoe.

Depending on the galvanics of similar and different alloys present, there may be a need for zincs to be incorporated on longer bolts - and easily replaced.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

imho The rudder shoe is a permanent fitting. There should never be a reason to remove it.

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I have only removed my rudder by removing the shoe, but I like the idea of being able to do so without removing the shoe. How much would one have to bend the shaft in order to remove rudder if the shoe were to stay on. Or is there enough play in the rudder tube to take it off without bending?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

Arguements for this would be that there is more rise available in case of grounding. Depends on what the top limit is.

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These rudders I'm afraid are not setup well to a grounding as the tube itself travels into the hull at or just above the waterline. If the rudder got punched into the bottom of the hull or if the lateral force was too great within the tube, the consequence could be the loss of steering, but also a hole in the hull where the tube is. I think an upgrade like yours where you reinforce the tube with epoxy and cloth is a well thought out plan and I think should be standard protocol for anyone seriously cruising with an ariel. The transom hung rudders on the other hand would allow the pintles to pop out of the gudgeon if the cotter pins holdng them in place were of lesser strength. If the rudder was attached to the hull via a short cable, the rudder would still be attached to the boat, all mounting hardware would be intact and your rudder would still be with you. Great setup for repair.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

Depending on the galvanics of similar and different alloys present, there may be a need for zincs to be incorporated on longer bolts - and easily replaced.

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I am going over this in my mind as I make a list of things to get for my replacement. I found a 1" rod 6 feet long for $250 at onlinemetals.com . It is silcon bronze, but I'm not sure if it would play well with the rudder shoe. A zinc is certainly a possiblility for this new setup, but exact materials is ideal to prevent making a battery at the expense of an expensive piece of hardware.

Tim, The reason we don't have a bearing where the shaft enters the boat is to have room to move the rudder over to drop it once it's lifted out of the shoe. (And the TOP bearing removed.) That seems to be the main reason. There is plenty of room in that 1 1/2" tube (maybe its bigger, can't remember) for a 1" shaft to be skooched over. But the gudgeon has to be removed or opened enough.
Couldn't bend the rudder but on 338 there was only glass and plastic around the hole the shaft goes in. Take a rat tail to file it open enough to get it over.

Gudgeon.
Have to make it easy to un-nut the bolt and bend the 'U' open.
Or knock the bolts thru and drop the rudder with the gudgeon in place. til you get it away from the keel. Imco I would not glue this fitting on but use bedding compound. It doesn't need to be adheesed! Doesn't do hardly any work. It's a back-up. Important back-up.

A tired Ariel came into the yard once that had no rudder shoe!:eek: It was plain gone! The rudder was hanging there and held in place with what looked like copper plumber's tape in the gudgeon position. It went back in without getting fixed. But this illustrates how important the gudgeon is.

Keel hung rudders that go into the boat have a generic problem with going aground and jamming the rudder up into the boat. Somebody did just that here and posted. Find it? Guess you have to live with this danger. Can't know how extensive damage will be so it's not really possible to prepare for it. I think the rudder looses, not the boat.

Silicon bronze is essentially inert in seawater. It's 98% copper. This doesn't mean your rudder shoe is silicon. Many bronzes like manganese are actually brass, they can have 40% zinc in them.

Bristol Bronze once said that they supplied Pearson with these castings. Manganese bronze underwater is bad news. Who knows what bronze was actually used for the shoes in our A/C's.
The shoe on 338 was heavily pitted on one side as if being eaten or leached away. The eaten side was greyish, it may have been the alloyed zinc in the fitting leaving home.
The rudder shaft was a refit s.s. propeller shaft that showed no corrosion at all. Hard to know what that alloy was or whether it was responsible for the corrosion in the shoe. Obviously the metal mix was BAD.
The zinc was threaded onto a longer bolt thru the shoe. But was not up to the job. Course you never know the whole story.

It is possible to get fancy and make a rudder blade with pvc foam (NOT urethane) and maybe design in a breakaway top or even a bottom breakawy piece that will leave the mid section of the blade usable in a dramatic grounding.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

Tim, The reason we don't have a bearing where the shaft enters the boat is to have room to move the rudder over to drop it once it's lifted out of the shoe. That seems to be the main reason. There is plenty of room in that 1 1/2" tube (maybe its bigger, can't remember) for a 1" shaft to be skooched over. But the gudgeon has to be removed or opened enough.

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Makes perfect sense, thank you for clarifying that. I must say I am a bit relieved, because the thought of removing the shoe after welding it on with 5200 and epoxy was a bit daunting.

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Originally Posted by ebb

Imco I would not glue this fitting on but use bedding compound. It doesn't need to be adheesed! Doesn't do hardly any work. It's a back-up. Important back-up.

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Good point. I used 5200 because I did the strap and shoe at the same time and had it on hand. I think I'll use a polysulfide on the strap when I remount my new rudder this winter.

FYI: The summer issue of "Boatworks" magazine has a short article on fabrication of a transom mounted rudder using epoxy, redwood and carbon fiber. While the style of the rudder doesn't include a bronze shaft like ours, the choice of materials may be applicable...http://www.sailmag.com/boatworks/

One great idea I've seen - if I recall, from a singlehand race boat prep site -
is a rudder blade that you make up yourself out of foam and glass, whatever, rather like a surfboard -
that slips into a stainless steel rod cage you have hanging on your transom.
The cage, of course, doesn't have to live there, but that may not be a bad idea, it could hook on with gudgeons and pintles. Or that as a unit of hinges and cassette could slip down some huge sail track like system permanently attached to the stern.
The idea was that if you suddenly needed the backup rudder you attach the cage without trailing the rudderblade which would make it impossible to attach while hanging over the transom
- and then slip the blade in.

I would imagine the blade unit would have to be minimum 6 feet. Probably more like 7 or 8 for a well-heeled Ariel.
I believe that rudder blade would be narrow, no more than a foot front to back, and not very thin, for beef.
This page had formulas for calculating torque forces on such a rudder, plans and foil formulas. Those forces would be huge, much more than the forces on a keel hung.

You'd have to split the backstay.
It could be that an offshore Ariel would not handle well with a faraft rudder. Never know - has it been done? It would take some spirited invention and development. Both as a backup rudder and as a possible replacement for the original. And what would you do with the original, lock it into place?

Might have to move the mast.

There's an old 1980 vintage BOC transatlantic boat at my marina with this sort of setup. The box is on the centerline with a single back stay. I believe the setup used either a wishbone shaped tiller or control lines to get around the backstay. I'll tack on a picture of the mount when I get a chance....

even better... here's a link to the boat with the rudder installed:
http://www.nike4.com/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ebb

You'd have to split the backstay.

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Nimble 20's or 24's which I think are really cool boats have a mizzen mast that gets in the way of a tiller the way a backstay would on our boats. They get around this by using a triangle shaped piece of hardware made out of stainless tubing that is attached to a fitting on the rudder and on the other end the tiller. It allows free movement side to side without hitting the mizzen. It's a neat idea and could imagine this setup working with an emergency tiller hung on the stern of our boat.

http://www.sailingtexas.com/picnimble24ac.jpg

Hi:

I"m interested if anybody has used oak as a material in the rudder. A family friend is a boat builder and I asked him to build me a new rudder after mine recently ripped apart after catching on a lobster pot at speed. He said we could use oak if the wider gaps in the planks over the winter don't bother me. Growing up around wooden boats I know that oak was widely used on rudders here in Maine but I'm not entirely convinced.

Also, I read about taking the rudder off in the water and my brother is a diver who said he could do the job but he asked me to find out if an Ariel can be beached on its side and refloat without flooding through the sink or cockpit drains. We were considering beaching her in the soft mud letting the side rest on a couple of large pieces of styrofoam. Has anybody beached an Ariel before on its side? We have a local wharf that has a tie up for beaching boats in the upright position but this time of the year it would be a pain in the but with all the tourists.

Best,

Ed

Ed

Yikes! I don't know if anyone has voluntarily done this on a flat surface. Mr. Tim (A-24) has talked about hauling out on a mud berth for his rudder repair.

I'd suggest thinking about finding a place to haul out that has some slope to it... Or... maybe drying out on with some jack stands or a cradle positioned in the water before the tide runs out. The attached cartoon shows some possible waterlines. It looks like the boat should recover just fine, but wave action may put water in the cockpit/icebox/lockers... (Are there any Naval Architects in the house??)

cheers, and good luck
Bill

Hi Ed,

I can weigh in with some personal experience as to laying the boat on it's side. I'm embarrassed to admit but one time that I went aground, the water level went down to about 1.5" at low tide. My boat was over the 45 degree angle as depicted in the above diagram. The water was over the toe rail almost to the coaming for hours. I was 100% sure that due to the heavy weight of the boat that as the tide came back, it would flood the boat before enough bouyancy was acheived to raise the boat off of it's side. I'm happy and amazed to report that this wasn't the case as the boat rose like an angel. Bless Carl Albergs design. BTW, it lay on the starboard side (galley side on my boat) and no water came in from the sink, but I did have some water in the bilge probably from the hull-deck joint being submerged for hours.
As to your question of removing the rudder at this angle, don't forget that the rudder has to drop down a few feet to clear the rudder post, you would have to dig a trench which might be difficult. I recently removed mine at anchor with a mask and snorkel which was easy. I was able to source a take-off rudder from someone who is parting out a commander. At this point I now have to replace the new rudder at anchor. I would love to have the boat hauled at this point to replace it, paint the bottom, remove the toilet and sink and glass the through hulls, but I can't move the boat till the rudder's back on. I dropped the rudder alone, but will need some help to raise the new one. I'll let you know how it goes.
Good luck,
Barry

bill, as usual, has great informative stuff. This is a great diagram!
What it shows me is that putting an Ariel over on its side would NOT make it any easier to remove the rudder.

Well, maybe a bit easier to get at the gudgeon, but you'd still have a time of it digging a hole (in MUD, no way) to squirrel the rudder out. It would be better on a slope. You got big tides up there down east. I dunknow, all that water coming in all at once! No rudder in the boat....:eek:

I'd sure like to hear how it wortks out......you first, Ed;)

The mud is a good part of this scheme if we try it. I'm not too sure why we are even thinking about this as I won't be able to fix it until the fall when the boat will be on the hard. I think we may try to jury rig something on the runt that is left of the rudder for the rest of the season. I always wondered if you could beach her on her side.

Using the same dock, we once winched the boat onto its side using the halyard at high tide to replace a through hull . . .so dangerous acts have been committed in the past. I think we have 11 feet on big tides but I don't recall. This is a dead calm spot so no waves are involved.

Any thoughts about oak?

Best, Ed

BTW I was a member of the board about 10 years ago. I'm very impressed with a lot of the boat pictures etc. I was pretty sure that my manual had the offsets for a new rudder but I don't see them. Am I mistaken or did I loose that page over the years?

Ed, I believe
your boat builder friend is correct - you can rebuild your rudder using WHITE OAK
if you use the same method as the original. The original rudder uses all silicone bronze rod and screws. No glue is used. White Oak don't like no glue anyway.

You'd be using quartersawn to avoid tendancy to warp. That's also the cut that will shrink and swell. My feeling would be to go with the biggest oldest tightest grain white oak available. Might be too mean to ever open up! The Ariel rudder is a BLADE. Rather thin, requires nice wood.

Black Locust is another, probably more rot resistant wood and stronger if that's what you want. You guys consider this a weed, don't you? Best damn boat building wood in the world,
next to teak, and yellow pine, and honduras, and....... :D
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________
Let me ask you guys something:
IF you didn't let the fastenings corrode on the tiller fitting, and you could take it off easy - and the same thing with the gudgeon - why not take the rudder off when you haul out. Keep it in brine, Nothing crazy - just so the water don't freeze. Make a ply box - line it black plastic - and balance the rudder shaft across the top with the wood in the liquid. Why not?

The fiberglass/foam rudder guys think you're nuts.

The arguement for doing something like this is that seasonal shrinking and swelling is going to loosen the bolts eventually,
so you'll end up having to put plates on the sides of the blade in an attempt to keep it straight. We West Coasters NEVER haul our boats in the winter (YUP, the rudder stays wet forever) because it's too bloody expensive.:rolleyes:

Can we revisit the rudder/neutral byoancy thought for a bit? But I want to throw a twist in the mix. In that post it's said that if the rudder is boyant then it'll tend to float when healed over, and addeing weather helm.

If a rudder (mahogany) is left uncovered and took on water I imagine that it comes close to neutral (right?) if its covered like #97 and a few others it is less likely to take on that water making it forever boyant (right?)

Here's the question: Those ariels out there that "sail them selves" are your rudders covered or not? And those out there with hard handed weather helm are yours covered? #97 falls into the latter catagory.

If we are taking a poll on glassed / non-glassed rudders..

A-231's rudder is 'glassed. I set the amount of lee or weather helm i want with the sail trim (mainsheet traveler and jib). Just for amusement of visitors, Alyce and I occasionally steer the boat with sail trim alone.

even though my rudder is 'glassed it will not float. one layer of 24oz mat and 6oz cloth each side more than make up for a dry rudder.

ps... the new production Ensign class boats (our little sisters) are using a foam and fiberglass now instead of the wood original. A friend of mine refit one of those new rudders to her 40yr old ensign. the boat is faster and the rudder is tough as nails.

For what it's worth, my opinion.
It is my understanding that the fudge yacht designers use for figuring "neutral buoyancy" for a rudder does not include the shaft.
It's obvious then that if the rudder blade on an Ariel or Commander were AIR,
the rudder would still not float.

Only wood rudders on dinghys float.

It would be interesting to find out who makes the Ensign rudder. Foss Foam rudders of Stainless steel and urethane foam are accidents waiting to happen. Neither one of these materials are meant to stay any time under water. My opinion is that even when brand new, the way the foam rudders I've seen are constructed, a shock from a rock, grounding, or a bang from anything will loosen the construction and render the blade useless. There is no way to keep water out of a urethane foam rudder - when it gets in you got trouble. And you will have to buy a whole new rudder because the stainless steel inside will be rusting.

Here's some thoughts on wood used for rudders such as ours.
The first thing to observe is that the bronze and wood (mahogany) rudders have been hanging around, in and out of the water for decades. Since day one for some.

When wood gets wet the fiberous cell walls get soaked first, then the cell cavities, that is saturation. Some woods sink in water when soaked, some don't. It is my personal opinion that wood will always remain wood and not revert to lead - in terms of weight. At what percentage of water in wood a rudder looses its 'neutral buoyancy' I don't know. A rudder blade made from mahogany or teak will be lighter than one made from white oak. In an A/C rudder I don't think it's a hell of a lot of difference given its size and skinnyness.

When drying out, the wood rudder will loose its cell cavity water first. There won't be any shrinking until the cell walls start loosing water. Shrinking will start in earnest when the wet wood in the rudder has lost about 2/3s of its weight. Nobody around the yard remmbers ever seeing saturated wood - unless it was rotten. I wonder if healthy wood can ever get to a saturated state?

The problem with seasonal drying and soaking is that the cell walls will get distorted and will not entirely return to dimension. Air dried lumber is always prefered by craftsmen for boats because the wood has not been case hardened and distorted by oven drying.

Water will always get into wood under water. Even encapsulated wood will be wet - tho, like the plastic rudder above, it is a matter of methodology and materials. Good close grain, old growth, air dry, quartersawn lumber will make a stronger longer lasting rudder. I've never heard that water logged wood looses any strength compared to dry.

Salt is hydroscopic. A rudder drying out from salt water will have salt crystals inside. There will always be moisture in a salt water rudder. BUT if it gets below 30% it'll shrink.

Epoxy is synthetic (wood) resin. I think it is a 'natural' wood preservative.
Any new rudder should be soaked in the stuff. I would soak the predrilled individual planks of a rudder in thinned epoxy befor assembly. It won't ecapsulate but will slow the effects of oxidation and time. Repeated drying and soaking a wood rudder accelerates the aging process. A mistreated rudder made with airdry will last longer. Mike Goodwin told me that.*
All IMCO;)
__________________________________________________ _________________________________________
*no, he didn't. Where the hell is Mike when you need him.....?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by tha3rdman

Here's the question: Those ariels out there that "sail them selves" are your rudders covered or not?

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A-414's rudder was 'glassed'. It's been delaminating since I've owned it and the glass is peeling off in big slabs. But - she sails like a dream with full genny (150) and main in 5-15 mph winds. When it pipes up and I switch to the smaller head sail (100), I get a LOT of weather helm because I have yet to reef the main...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bill@ariel231

I set the amount of lee or weather helm i want with the sail trim (mainsheet traveler and jib). Just for amusement of visitors, Alyce and I occasionally steer the boat with sail trim alone.

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Hey Bill, I want sailing / rigging lessons! :)

Never Glass A Plank Rudder

If the rudder is more or less holding together or if you have all blade parts,
BETTER THAN GLASSING would be to thrubolt strips of some fairly stiff material to patch it together. Rudder can be wet.

Metal strips are criminally expensive these days, but since the fix is to keep the boat sailing, almost anything would do. If you have a salvage place nearby you're in luck.

Sheet plastic would do: 1/4"-3/8" polypropylene or polyethylene. Polycarbonate, maybe acrylic. Fair the fronts at the rudder post if you have time.
Or if you have the material, make strips up of matt and epoxy.
You won't get any rubber or adhesive to stick to a wet, bottom-painted rudder.
Well sealed marine ply strips might be a temporary fix if soaked in epoxy to help keep it from delaminating.

I would arrange the strips on the rudder parallel to the waterline. Tilted UP about 35degrees from the rudder post. I would thru bolt the strips to each other because you can't trust the wood of a tired rudder.

A damaged traditional rudder may have issues with the plank bolts at the ruddershaft.

The only wood you can successfully cover with glass for underwater is plywood. Even then you are asking for trouble. You'd have to build the rudder with the best marine ply you can afford (marine meranti BS1088) and you would have to use epoxy. Vinylester maybe.
IMCO

"Never Glass A Plank Rudder - ebb" ... hmm.. maybe i'm lucky. A-231's is still going strong after 10 years. This wasn't necessarily my first choice but it appeared to be the best plan forward after the previous owners bungled repairs. for me the trick was (1) a very dry rudder core, (2) use of epoxy (vice polyester) with mat and cloth, (3) I sealed the bronze/fiberglass joint with '5200. no sign of delamination or water entry (i checked with a drill this year).

If A-231's rudder had been in one piece when I got it, I agree paint alone would have been the right answer.

as for sail trim.. once the rig is balanced with larger or small head sails and a a reef in the main as needed. try this when there is lots of room, light seas, don't try this in traffic...

to fall off.. (1) over sheet the jib, (2) slack the main (in really light air, backwind the main on the leeward side), (3) re-trim the sails on the new heading.

to come up... (1) slack the jib, (2) over sheet the main (in light air, pull the boom above the centerline and backwind the main), (3) re-trim to the new heading.

These sound like parlor tricks but in really light air my friends and I have used them on the race course to round the leeward mark in really light air ('cause the rudder alone will slow us down)....


cheers,
bill@ariel231
:)

I've emntioned this before as far as sail trim, and 97's weather helm even with the main slacked luffing (and everthing in between) with the 160 there is always weather helm. I've used the sails to steer before but only short short distances since she'll never fall off. Even with just the genny, she still tends to come up.

Anti Highjack mauver - Which is why I was wondering about the rudder tending to float.

bill,
you are one in a hundred,
I believe the odds even greater,
of anybody else making a good job of it.

It is definitely the method and the materials.
If the subject comes up again - or if you have the time,
a short treatise on the subject would be appreaciated by 100s
if not thousands of avid rudder sheathers to be.

If you were successful, please tell us how you did it.
I would not recommend it to the unanointed.

Ebb

will do when i get a moment...

Bill

Here is a link to the repair that I did to my rudder for those trolling this thread in the future.

http://pearsonariel.org/discussion/s...&postcount=167

Quote:

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Originally Posted by bill@ariel231

Ed

Yikes! I don't know if anyone has voluntarily done this on a flat surface. Mr. Tim (A-24) has talked about hauling out on a mud berth for his rudder repair.

I'd suggest thinking about finding a place to haul out that has some slope to it... Or... maybe drying out on with some jack stands or a cradle positioned in the water before the tide runs out. The attached cartoon shows some possible waterlines. It looks like the boat should recover just fine, but wave action may put water in the cockpit/icebox/lockers... (Are there any Naval Architects in the house??)

cheers, and good luck
Bill

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Sounds like you need to give that boat some legs. I think there was an article in Good Ole Boat Magazine a number of years ago where a lady beached her boat and used these poles strapped to the toerail on both sides to keep it upright while she painted the bottom. I guess it worked like a charm because the keel was relatively long so it was stable like that.

www.atomvoyages.com
click Articles
__________________________________________________ ______________________________________

SORRY:
Thought I'd check em out again, but for some *#&^@!?)(#!! reason can't get the said Article OR Project to come up!

The legs were take apart poles, I believe, with custom pads for feet, that were not lashed to the uppers but to the aft lower plate - and had lines leading from the feet fore and aft. No way could you go cruising without them.

If you carried other poles viz spinaker, my guess is to be usable for legs on an Ariel (ie lashed to the shrouds) they'd have to be at least 10'.

http://www.alberg30.org/maintenance/...ized/careening
I guess technicly careening can mean leaning the boat more to one side than the other - just as it means resting the ship on its bilge. This site takes the upright approach and could possibly be a way of getting the rudder OUT if you want to dig a 30" deep hole on what you're sitting on. (You need a 28" drop to clear the top of the rudder shaft from the bottom of the rudder tube.)
__________________________________________________ ________________________________________
Dream of a maintenance-free s.s. and foam rudder?....this taken from a skipper's list of things to do at HAULOUT From a 'geocities' site:

"Drill hole in lowest point of rudder to drain water.
Rusty water or lots of water = bad.
Epoxy hole shut befor refloating."

(this could be a new thread - but it still is apropos access to the rudder)

Jim Baldwin's Sailnet article now comes up using the address in the previous post.
If whisker and spinaker poles don't have a place on your cruising A/C then this invention of Jim's is fantastic. He uses s.s. pipe/tube. Relatively common 6061T6 aluminum might work as well.

The article is not complete in that there are no closeups of the fittings. Most important is the method of attachment of a leg to the chainplate. I believe Jim temporaryly removes the aft lowers, using that plate.*

Some exploration of 'Some Legs' for the Commander or Ariel should probably be done on the hard. I have trouble 'seeing' the legs at the top 'attached' to a single point on top of the chain plate, obviously by a bolt or pin. Couldn't the leg be lashed in some fashion right to the upper shroud, which is almost vertical? In other words I would rather have a two point tie to the upper shroud in order to have a stiffer leg. One lashing at deck level, another a couple feet higher. What am I missing here?

Another thought is that if the center shroud is used, the fore and aft lowers on either side could be employed to position and steady the legs, again by lashing. Maybe - like the feet below - a plywood devise that clamps to the shrouds with a couple clamps for the leg poles could be designed. Ariels with inboard shrouds might benefit with a gizmo that clamped to the shrouds but standoff the proper distance outboard for the legs to be at a optimal angle. Seems to me that an optimal angle would be slightly knock-kneed, wider at the bottom than the top.

Another 'exploration' is necessary to articulate the footpads. Seems to me the pad to pole joint has to be a universal type - able to lay flat at whatever angle the boat is to the surface. How?

Another problem is whether the legs can or ought to be adjusted IF the boat decides to lean and a foot starts sinking?:eek:

Another issue is that the flat part of the keel is aft of the shrouds. Is there any tendancy of the A/C to nose forward or downward? An inclined beach would counter that problem if the boat is bow in. Yet most of the Ariel's sitting surface is under the companionway - the keel starts upward from a point between the two big windows in the cabin - that might put "unintended" pressure on the legs at the shrouds.

That means there is less than 6' of horizontal keel surface (in the 25' length of an A/C). And all of that is concentrated in the rear half. If you wanted to remove the rudder, it would be dicey to say the least, even tied to side of a quay.
Has anybody done this - tied off at dock side and have the tide go out to work on the bottom?
A THIRD LEG MAY BE NEEDED AT THE BOW. (just being difficult - and voluminous as somebody once said!:p )
__________________________________________________ ____________________________________
Anybody carrying oars (see appropriate archives) might find that they could be adapted to leg duty. Blade up with slip on footpad over the handle, and a clever, simple attachment of the blade end to the shrouds...
__________________________________________________ ____________________________________
*So far as I know Jim Baldwin is the only one on the Web who has been thoughtful enough to share his Boat Legs invention. His boat is a 28' Pearson Triton, BIG sister to the A/C. He is a double circumnavigator, and MORE than obviously knows what he is doing. Don't mean to second guess or demean in any way whatsoever his methods, ways, or means. I'm positive that knowing how to stand your boat up is as important as sailing it, or climbing the mast. My intent is Ariel specific, and hopefully to get to the root of things with discussion. I could be wrong. And could be assuming too much.:confused:

Per Ebb's challenge (in post #253) I'll describe my method of repair for A-231's rudder.

Disclaimer and Warning:
If you have a functioning plank rudder leave it alone. This method is not a simple sheathing of the current rudder. The end product is a fiberglass rudder with a wood core. If your rudder is has a couple splits, has a solid shaft and you really, really need a boat project then this method may be for you. I have no personal objection to any approach to rudder repairs that are safe. I make no claim this is by any means a recommended method of repair to the Ariel/Commander rudder. It has however, worked for me for the last 10 years.

Problem description:

• When we acquired A-231, the rudder had failed in the same manner as Tim’s on A-24 ( a vertical break from the propeller aperture to the top).
• A P.O.’s attempt to repair the rudder looked to be un-reinforced thickened epoxy to glue the broken halves together. As a result, I had a series of bad repairs to address or the need to fabricate a new rudder from scratch…
• I elected to sheath A-231’s rudder while keeping in mind the many failed rudders I’ve seen around boatyards. Most sheathed rudders I’ve observed have been simple affairs of 6oz cloth with no attempt to keep the actual rudder core dry. The most common failures I observed were the result of (1) a poor bond between the rudder skin and the rudder shaft, (2) freeze damage or swelling from the resulting water entry, least common was (3) trauma to the rudder skin from a grounding. Many of these fixes did more harm than good as the fiberglass skin often just trapped water and led to early failure from rot. Clearly water entry in a sheathed rudder is the root cause of failures…
• A-231’s rudder is essentially a fiberglass rudder with a wood core. The difference from a traditional fiberglass fairing are: first, a thick skin over the bulk of the rudder (two layers of 6oz cloth and a layer of mat yielding a 1/8” - 3/16" skin), and second, a significant effort spent on sealing the joint between the rudder shaft and the wood core of the rudder. For A-231, the rudder shaft is sealed with both a ½ inch of thickened epoxy with a secondary seal of 3M 5200 in a groove at the fiberglass/shaft boundary.
  
  The following entries show the steps followed in A-231’s rudder repair.

steps 1 and 2:________________________________________________ _____

step 3:________________________________________________ ___________

step 4:________________________________________________ __________

step 5:______________________________

The 5200 seal on top of ½” of glass may be overkill but I’m a belt and suspenders kind of guy…. Plus it was an excuse to use yet another power tool on a otherwise simple project. ;)

cheers,
bill@ariel231

ps. one last word of caution... the radius of the leading edge of the rudder will grow as a result of the additional glass. as a result, the radius of the channel in the trailing edge of the keel will also need to be increased to make room. On A-231 this was accomplished with a 1" sanding drum chucked into a RotoZip (a sort of overgrown dremel). If you omit this step the rudder will grind against the trailing edge of the keel.

Bill is text book on his rudder reburbishment!


If I may comment....
Fiberglass rudder with wood core imco is absolutely the correct concept.

Water or callit water vapor will get into wood that lives under water no matter what is done to encapsulate it. Nothing wrong with that except that the wood will want to swell and move. So layers of glass and matt are called for to immobilize the 'core' as much as possible.

I'd emphasize to some readers that the best plastic to use is twopart epoxy. Vinylester could be a possible second choice. Polyester should not be used in this ap.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _
Wrapping the ruddershaft.
It is my opinion you can wrap the ruddershaft with CLOTH layers of glass. This isnn't clear in the cads. Observe how much room there is if you don't have the original wood rudder on your keel. The original rudder has the bronze shaft exposed with the blade carefully tabbed onto the aft side of the metal. There should be plenty of room to take a few turns of glass around the shaft. Epoxy sticks pretty well to cleaned up bronze. It will go a long way to welding the different materials together: wood, metal, frp. Including perhaps some questionable bolts and screws hidden inside the wood.
As bill says: In wrapping the shaft keep in mind the turning of the rudder. You don't want to hamper its radius/swing. I would, as bill suggests, I think, keep the wraps to 6oz cloth, no xmatt. The buildup of 6oz cloth is minimal. Two layers is good, but one or two more may be possible.
[Make up a layer test of scrap fabric and epoxy and measure the finished thickness. Wrap something bendable like cardboard of the same thinkness around the shaft while it's on the boat and see what if any limits have been added to the swing of the rudder.]
GOOD suggestion to clean out the cove in the end of the keel once the rudder is removed. Best chance you'll ever get - and you can barrier coat it too. Creating depth is good, width may be a bit of a problem, depending on how skinny your keel is overall at the rudder. (Rotary rubber drum/sanding sleeves seem to be becoming scarce. One catalog source is Klingspor, www.woodworkingshop.com
You used to be able to buy sanding sleeves/drums in sets for pretty cheap. But if you have to get singles: a 1 1/2" sleeve/drum in a drill will fit nicely the cove in the keel, coarse grit. So, of course will the 1"!!! If you are renovating the boat, it is not possible to do it without a complete set of drums.
Apply the 6oz cloth at a bias (45 degrees) around the shaft, it'll double the strength and there will be no puckerings.
Actual work-in-progress photos would have been great for this important upgrade variation. Oh well, next time!:D
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As a matter of curiousity: The original lines drawings, presumably by Alberg, shows the rudder shaft as 1 1/2" D. Almost as if the original shaft was to have been wood. The 'sternpost' is 2" across on the drawing. Our 1" bronze shaft translates to a much thinner rudder at its leading edge. Could say that fiberglassing as above brings the rudder closer to Alberg (vs Pearson) spec! And more hydrodynamic off the thicker end of the keel. I wonder if anybody will take the opportunity to add some modern foil curves to the blade and skinny down the trailing edge? A wood core fiberglass rudder would be a good opportunity, but ofcourse there would be no going back. Foil shaping may help correct stalling and steering problems some have mentioned?

Thanks ebb... back in 96 when i did the rudder i had no thought about photos of the small stuff (i was more worried about deck, keel & diesel issues). hopefully the next candidate (perhaps the next owner of A-24) will indulge us with pictures.

You are right. 2 part epoxy was my choice. As i think about it now, i recall the shaft end and the heel were done with 6oz cloth and thickened epoxy. I was probably used thickened epoxy and chopped glass in the joint for the rudder strap. once it set, a dremel was used to reshape the profile of the rudder in the areas that were glassed. two to three layers of bias cut 6oz cloth on the edges are the right answer. Mat won't make the sharp turn at the edges.

none of this work necessarily leaves me with less work in the spring. The rudder gets a complete health check before bottom paint is applied and the 5200 seal is checked and renewed if necessary. The joint most likely to move is the top most. The lower section of the rudder shaft isn't subject to a lot of torsion. I spend time on this check every year because while there may be a low probalility of failure, the consequence is a time consuming repair if water ever got to the core.

cheers,
bill@ariel231
:)

OK!
Could be said to be a good test - by any reckoning.

An underwater wood rudder on a plastic boat is incongruous to me.
It's not an eyecatching sweep of varnished coaming or accents like the cabin rails.
The original A/C rudder is a great piece of high end bronze and mahogany craftmanship.
Not only is this astonishing artwork hidden under water but it works real hard and has done so for many, for many many soggy miles - for decades.

I'd argue that the rudder should have originally been woodcore fiberglass - in keeping with the wonderful new plastic hull material and glass/balsa composite of the deck of the '60s.
I guess materials and engineering weren't up to the old tried and true back then.

But now it can be put aright!

I just hauled 387 out for my first time. Overall things look pretty good. I was surprised at the lack of biofouling since the bottom hasn't seen new paint for (I'm guessing since I just bought the boat last winter) at least 4 years. I plan to remove the seven layers of bottom paint and replace with new trinidad, replace/remove all thruhulls and replace with correct seacocks and do the topsides with brightsides.

The rudder, is another story however, and seems in very poor condition. I have always felt that the rudder didn't respond as I felt it should so really this should come as no surprise. I would like to remove it from the boat for repair. It appears that one needs to remove that gudgeon strap, pull the ruddder up and move sideways and drop. Simple enough but what is the best way to take out the pins the hold the gudgeon? The pins on mine are flush with the strap. Do you just pound them out with a hammer? Can they be reset?

Any help would be great!

Cheers,


Andrew

Andrew, Welcome to the real world of renovation.:D
You perhaps have already started on the rudder....
Remember to take the sleeve bearing out....

I''d forensic the strap.
The strap was probably put on last at the factory, so that's the place to begin.
Strip the paint off down to the metal to see what's there and how it's put together. If it's original and tired and you are going to rebuild the rudder, you might be putting on a new gudgeon and new fastenings.
It's unlikely that all underwater bronzes are the same alloy, so things may have crystalized or leached or got tired.
Or if it's just like new, maybe not. It is bordering on antique so it'll be instructive how it was done on your boat, and you may want to rebuild or restore exactly whats there.

Photos.
__________________________________________________ __________________________
To take pins out, drill into the pin a little way (1/4"?) with a slightly undersized drillbit - to destroy the peened head. Then punch the pin out.
Can't be used again.
If you find the gudgeon strap is fastened with peened over rod then it almost certainly is pure soft copper - and will look pink. Which is what tired bronze alloys look like. That gudgeon itself couldn't take too much banging with the ballpeen hammer. Peening requires a backing iron, so you'd need someone when putting the gudgeon back on to hold something immovable against the pin on the other side.
I barely managed to pin the ruddershoe on to 338 using silicon rod. The stuff don't peen worth a damn. Down at the bottom of the boat I could clamp on a piece of iron plate as a backer - which can't be done with the gudgeon and mounted rudder in place. I should have heated presized rod pins to dull red with Mapp gas to anneal them, let them cool, position them, then attempted to peen the heads. The rudder shoe is a big ole casting and I peened the rod into chamfered holes.
Thing is, when you start peening copper alloys they start hardening again.
You'll probably use silicon bronze machine bolts for the strap when putting it back together. You might find solid copper rivets and burrs of large size and length from a woodboat building source.

The rudder doesn't look to bad to me. You could just reinforce/repair the tip.

Since you have concrete under the boat, I think you're going to need to disassemble the upper rudder shaft from the rudder in order to drop it.

The project will probably escalate into a whole new rudder.

Not sure about the handling problems you've been experiencing. Is the wood loose from the shafts?

It's much worse than it looks in these pictures (good from far far from good!). The wood has eroded away along all the margins and yes it is loose on the shaft. The wood has a mossy texture and you can peel strips off with no effort at all. I have been reading about rudders and am trying to decide what to do?

1) replace with new (would have to be a dyi job)

2) encapsulate in glass as per Bill

If the wood that would make up the "core" of the glassed rudder is punky would this mean that this option is unwise to follow?

I don't worry about doing stuff I know but have not really built a rudder before.


Andrew

Andrew,
There's probably enough material in these forums for you to find out everything about each style of rudder.

The wood plank style you have on your boat is classic wood working. You could take that rudder apart and rebuild using it as pattern. It depends on what you find whether you go ahead with a wood plank rudder or a wood core, or a plywood, or an all plastic composite.

You have to find out how the bronze shaft is doing. Depending on the rod alloy you may or may not have corrosion inside the rudder tube - at the connection points of rudder shaft and the long plank bolts - and the end of the shaft at the shoe.. If this is all good, why not go with the traditional rudder?
You have to have some basic wood skills imco. And basic tools. This rudder uses NO glue. The pieces are finely fitted together. Which adds to its overall strength. You have a couple relatively long holes to drill sideways through the width of the plank, The plank at the bronze shaft(s) have to be coved along the edge. And you have to shape and curve the mahogany.
However, when you mount your own made rudder nothing else on the boat will faze you!
And I think putting a mahogany plank rudder together will give the most satisfaction of all the methods. Wood smells good, bronze works good and there's no sticky goop.
AND it'll last another 40 years - under water!!!

I would research these pages and look for the how-I-did-it accounts that have photos, or at least good descriptions.
And some owners here have email access, and may be willing to go brow-to-brow on the specifics of their mahogany plank rudders.


ON_LINE MANUAL* addition:
I know it's too much to ask. A step by step pictorial tutorial on how to rebuild the original rudder would be a great addition to this Forum. Could be posted in the Gallery pages. It is the only evidence of oldtime high-end wood craftsmanship on our snotty Ariel/Commanders.





If you are going with a glass over woodcore blade, the core has to be sound and well connected to the shaft. If it is wobbley you can NOT end up with a strong rudder.
__________________________________________________ __________________________________
*Nope, doesn't exist.

Still thinking about rudders.......

What is the advantage of having the drift pins end up in cut-outs in the middle of the second plank (like Tim built) vs having them go all the way through both planks and be secured externally (like c'pete's barndoor)?

Maybe this is obvious but I'm not a carpenter.

Andrew,
Tim's photos on page 13 of this thread is a good how-to.
If you planned the curvature of the rudder, some of those bolts would not necessarily line up like that and might be longer.
I might have wanted a few longer ones going further into the outer plank. Length of bolt depends on the outline of the rudder.
Lining bolts up like that could conceivably create a 'zipper' effect.
If the rudder wanted to crack, it might chose the easiest way, which might be right up that line of nut holes.
[These 'bolts', of course, are cut to length silicone rod with custom threaded ends.]

What this method does is allow you to have no fastenings in the outer edge of the blade. It would allow some judicious blade tapering, which is a good thing. While the barn door style, where the bolts (and washers and nuts) go clear through, you can hardly round the trailing edge at all. But it ain't coming apart, or if it does, it'll still hang together.

I don't think one is better than the other. Probably have heated arguments with cold beers.

A rudder with a prop cutout like yours the situation is more complicated. Here the plan may call for actual drift pins which are blind pins you make to length that are put in matching holes in opposing planks that hold the joint in line.
The two planks with their different fasteners, bolts and pins would be drawn together with pipe clamps or the like. The drift pins would disappear completely. After drawn together the rudder is cut to shape.
When the rudder swells in the water the pins will also be holding the planks together even though there are no heads or nuts on the ends. Pins like this could be placed where no bolt could go or between widely placed bolts.

Tim screwed his long bolts into the shaft/rod in tapped holes. I would supposed the holes did not go through the the rod but were bottom tapped in about 1/2" deep. Where the shape of the rudder makes radical angles of plank, a drift pin could also be screwed into the shaft and enter blind into an appropriate hole in the wood - still doing a job of positioning and holding - but not clamping.
Makes for a strong rudder shaft - and well attached blade.

With the prop cutout rudder we have to carefully plan exactly where the fastenings go. That is why careful deconstruction of your present rudder will tell the tail. Guys who made those rudders in the 60s were pros and never missed a lick. I would essentially copy what they did. in remaking THAT rudder. Evidently all Ariel and Commander rudders were built to the same pattern, whether OB or inboard. So original rudders all have the two part bent shaft.

That said, there are probably a hundred other ways to make a rudder. Most of them almost as good.

Thanks ebb! Your advice, as usual, is spot on. Going to the boat this weekend to start in on renos. My dilemma is every day she is out increases the overall cost of the haulout ($25/day for time on the hard adds up fast!). After much thought I have decided to focus on the hull so I can get her back in the water ASAP. Once she is back in I can order the materials and do the rudder rebuild rather than being hurried along worried about boat yard costs. The rudder will have to be fixed before she sails again for sure. I figure I'll just do an install like Tim M using the carriage bolts to attach the gungy gungeon. This I'm sure I can do using scuba (I'm a forgetting something???). With a brand new rudder in hand the install should be easy esp if I do all the prep beforehand. I figure I'll hang the old one on the wall in the dining room as a conversation piece. Hell it's almost as old as I am!

I'm sure I'll have more questions come Monday........

PS Discussions (I don't get into heated arguements!) over cold beers in a pub near your boat yard sounds very appealling. Although I must admit I would prefer a nice Meritage!

.....days become weeks, weeks become months, months turn into years......

That rudder don't LOOK all that bad.
What you do to the hull to get back into the water,
do the same to the rudder. Scraping, sanding, bottom paint.
It'll be fine. Until next time....

How are things at the bottom of the rudder. How is the rudder shoe?
Use a flashlight and try to look into the rudder tube where the shaft enters.
You are looking for news here. Scrape a little. Knock that paint off the gudgeon just to see what's there. Check where the strap goes round the shaft. Give the rudder a shake. A pleasant fix is a new sleeve bearing, amazing what a tight rudder feels like under the skipper's arm.

Don't recall the beer, I'll see if it's at the market right now, CHEERS!
__________________________________________________ ________________________________________________

[My favorite these days is an 8% ale called Eye of the Hawk, Mendocino Brewing, CA. Best balance of hops and sugar of any micro in this area. No taste of alcohol, pours a nice controlled head - world class brew that comes in 12oz bottles, which I consider a big plus.]
Imco, as always.

Ebb,

Where can I purchase the manganese bronze strap that I am going to need for the new gungeon. I checked online metals but they don't seem to carry the strap just rod?


Many thanks,

Andrew

When I was replacing my rudder strap because the original one was spent, I too had trouble finding a source for what I needed. A prominent member of this board came to my rescue and through an act of kindness, sent me what I needed at no cost. I am very willing to return the favor with the stock I have left over. The width is 7/8" at one end and 1" at the other as I had trouble cutting it even, but I think that should be enough to work for you. If you are interested, feel free to PM or e-mail your address and I'll ship it to you.


http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...ze_stock_1.JPG

http://www.mrmert.com/ariel24/images...ze_stock_2.JPG

Never asked you Tim how you managed using that 1/8" 655.

I'll bet the original Ariel straps are pure soft copper, otherwise once you thread the bar through the rudder and attempt to bend it onto the keel, how would you do it?
Probably have bent the bar into a smaller angle than 90degrees.
Still, how did you get that hardass bronze bent the rest of the way?
Did you anneal it first?
Seems to me there would be no way to get it flat enough to drill the holes.

You may have predrilled the holes on one side, but how could you be sure where the holes would come out on the other?
If you had a wall nearby you could jack the strap closed with a two-by.
And then hold it tight the same way with narrow bar - to finish that important drilling.

What was the trick?


Salvage and scrap yards used to be a place to spend Saturday mornings. 'Course you're never sure what bronze was brass and what stainless was really stainless. And copper bar is probably a junk yard's cash flow these days. Junk yards were fun.
If you can explain to Andrew and me how you did it, I'll talk to the prominent bloody know-it-all about digging up another piece of strap.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ebb

how did you get that hardass bronze bent the rest of the way?...What was the trick?

---

I bent the bar enough so that it could be threaded through the opening behind the shaft. Once in place I was able to get the bolt through one end and then fanagle the other in so that a little bit of thread was showing. I then screwed on the nut and that clamped it. What made the job really obnoxious was the copious amount of 5200 dripping all over me while doing this. On land was the easy part, when I took that strap off underwater I had a hell of a time getting it back on.

Here is the post that showed the strap once I was done.
http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...&postcount=132

Tim, Nice work!!!
The strap is bent perfectly. I still don't know how you did it.

I had a couple fanagles. One of them was at least six feet long. Coming across Country one March in my pickup some SOB in Ohio stole them both.


Have an idea that would make life easier to get the rudder shaft free from the grudgeon.
OK, take that 1/8" stuff, or better something thicker like 3/16" or 1/4" 655, and bend that perfect 'U' loop Tim has there. Then, right in the center of the loop, cut it in half. Cut it in half into equal 'J' pieces.

With the rudder in place, position and mount one J piece. It's OK here to use fully threaded carriage bolts. Where the bolts come through the KEEL make holes in the fiberglass for a washer and nut (the keel SHOULD be solid in this area) so that when the bolts are cinched the nuts end up FLUSH with the keel surface with the bolt ends sticking out. If you are using 1/4" bolts the hole including a split washer won't need to be more than 1/2" deep.

Then take the other half gudgeon slip it on the bolts and cinch it up with more nuts. You have clamped the midway rudder shaft in place.

To remove the rudder unscrew the nuts, take off the 'J' half gudgeon and (after preparing the shaft in the cockpit) move the shaft UP and sideways out of the shoe.

You do have a slit down the middle of the gudgeon.
My thinking on this is that the fitting itself does little work, It's there as a keeper. Most rudders are able to rise a little when lifted from below. The purpose of the gudgeon is to make sure the rudder drops back down into the recess in the shoe. The six feet of rudder shaft is held at the top with the sleeve-bearing and at the bottom where 3/4" of it is buried in the shoe. The rudder blade keeps the shaft straight - SO it could be said that the gudgeon is essentially a backup. An essential backup.
But you see what I"m getting at: there is little action by the rudder that could bend the split gudgeon apart.

And if the 'J's did get bent a little, bang them back in place. It's impossible to see how they could get bent.

[YES, well, it could happen that you go aground, the rudder is jambed up against the hull no longer in the shoe. Then some sideways action with the weight of the boat bends the rudder where it enters the tube. OK, there's is an argument for a full strap. Therefor 1/4" bronze for extra beef in a split version]
There are probably some fancy hydrodynamic fastener options. But this should work good enough. With carriage bolts, you always will have a clue which side the nuts are on. I would put all nuts on with nevah-seize and try sculpting small mounds of putty or rubber on the exposed nuts for protection.

It's not unreasonable to make our rudder removable, correct?
You boats with plank rudder blades in the North East who winter on the hard could remove and keep them plumped up and happy until spring in a cozy salt water tub. No shrinkage, hey what!

There you go,
is it not a simple method to take the rudder off without removing the gudgeon?
This is only an idea at this point
and imco as always.

Thing about working under water is that nobody can hear you cussing:rolleyes:
And it WAS you Tim, wasn't it, who invented the in water method of rudder removal....? Did you use the boom?
This is a real option that avoids the expense of yard hoisting the boat.
It's also a viable cruiser option, a way of getting a damaged rudder off a floating boat.

Ebb,
You got yerself a deal. I'll PM you details!

ANdrew

Andrew, I'm the one with the extra bronze stock. PM me! :cool:

Of course you are. Just got back from my first reno weekend (see new thread) and I'm a bit out of it! Sorry about that!


And thanks for your great offer!

Andrew

Rudder saga continues.

Worked on the rudder this weekend. Decided to remove it from the boat. Easier said than done. Had to dig the old slit trench w/o a shovel. Used my trustly wonder bar (gotta love that tool!). Cleaned up the rudder and reshaped it after the digging project. Removed alot of old bad wood. Some epiphytic damage on the lower margin. Overall came out loking pretty good. I believe it still needs replacement but will suffice for the next month or so. Thanks to Tim for the replacement metal for my grundy grundeon!

Shoe looks good as far as I can tell.

Tighened up all the screws/bolts and the rudder feels better. Repreened the heads as they were out of sorts after the adjustment. Shaft is very red (and blurry!) in parts.......replacement looming.

Also followed Tim's example and added some thickened to the exit point of the rudder tube. Will sand it down when I do the hull. Sorry about the crappy picture. I just can't see that damn camera screen in the sunshine!

Andrew

Looks like a 3-plank rudder there! Wonder if it's original?
Does indeed look good, except for 'incidentals' on the bottom edge.
Third plank out might have been attached with lags.

Copper (pink) color on a supposed bronze (gold) shaft would not be a good sign.
It would mean the alloy was high zinc and the zinc has leached leaving a porous copper behind. Leaching is INTERNAL alloy galvanic action. Does not require anothedissimular alloy nearby. In the case of a copper alloy - too much zinc for salt water immersion.
If you get serious about making a new rudder, I strongly suggest you go with silicon bronze. So you can keep the alloys in the rudder all the same. High zinc manganese bronze should NOT be used underwater. Nor stainless. I think this is beyond 'my opinion'.
Prepare for a nosebleed on the price!!! ($53.31 a foot +s&h for 1" S.B. rod from Onlinemetals)

Impressive action there!
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________
Getting bronze for a boat is a big problem these days. Nearly all marine sources are orientated to stainless steel. Silicon rod is still available usually, along with a range of fasteners from SOME marine catalogers. S.B. sheet and bar is impossible to find in small quantity off-the-street sales. As the woodenboat forum says: you have to find fabricators in your area. They may have left-overs from a job because they too have to order 'minimum quantities'.
Here are three non-ferrous suppliers that show phone numbers on their net pages, it may be a friendly sign.
Rancocas Metals in New Jersey - 800-762-6382
Atlas Metals in Denver - 800-662-0143
Busby Metals Hauppauge NY 800-552-8729. / 631-434-3400 (sometimes get better action with a local number)
There is no indication from woodenboat forum experience that these suppliers with internet sites will send you a 1 foot piece of bronze in the mail.

BUT TRY Phil at Metal Service Center*, 7743 Bell Rd, Windsor CA, 707-838-8088. The estate metal and wood shop here where I work buys small quantitys and custom pieces of all kinds of metals constantly from them. No problem. Maybe they UPS. Remember you are in the boat repair business.

* from whom I ordered my original Everdur from. I got NO break in the price. (gold)
One metal fabricator in my area is Lux Metals in Santa Rosa CA. They, or actually Dean, welded my silicon bronze rudder shaft and strap armature together. Beautiful piece of work. (platinum)
They never returned to me some S.B. sheet I had to quantity buy for the job.
I mention these to show that every metro area has some sort of access to specialty materials.
Always E X P E N S I V E .

A three planker indeed! Looks old as dirt so I figure the real Mackoy. Thanks for the shout about the bronze. I guess if I convert to Si bronze then I'll have to change my shoe. The shaft is in sad shape but I think it will hold for a bit.

Well start to scout out options.


Andrew

There is a 'rudder shoe discussion' on the board here about the manganese question.

The official designation of manganese bronze is that is is a BRASS. It is a pig in a poke.* There is a bit of manganese added to the copper and zinc that makes it quite strong. For example: 58% copper/38% zinc/ 4% manganese. It's as if the M. was a catalyst for two soft metals, like polyester resin, resulting in a much harder material.

I had a conversation once with Roger Winiarski the owner of Bristol Bronze.
Most of their castings are done in M.B. Most of their castings NOW are one off above the waterline casting for mega yachts, and mega retros last I heard. They do have a number of castings in their catalog that they must get calls on. And they do have a few silicon bronze fittings.

Roger said that Bristol supplied all the original bronze for the Pearson Ariels.
I just cannot believe that Bristol supplied a brass for the underwater rudder parts on the Ariel. He did some casting for me and in the two part cast gudgeon he said he used manganese. And I called him on it. And he started changing the subject. I will probably not use the fitting.
[and you know, I keep saying who am I to take issue with THIS guy...]

I had a new rudder shoe cast locally in silicon bronze and I will be inserting a S.B. rudder shaft into it.

There is no real way you can stop an alloy that wants to destroy itself from the inside out like a brass will do IN sea water. I believe mounting a zinc on the shoe is only a palliative.
I also believe that the proper bronze has to have been originally used. There are evidently plenty of Ariels that have their shoes in perfect condition after 45 years in brine. Only silicon bronze or some other high percentage copper alloy could have survived that long unchanged.

Winiarski could be wrong and it is other early Pearson classes that have had problems with their shoes.

However, 338 did show corrosion on its shoe, but the Ariel came to me with a bastard rudder with a stainless shaft. I assumed the combination caused the problem with the shoe. There was a zinc attached to the shoe with one longer through bolt. The side the zinc was on was most corroded with a whitish coating on the bronze pitting (when dry) that I assumed was zinc. Logically it should have been the other way around, with the stainless shaft being eaten away - but it was perfect. How long the rudder had been there is unknown. SO somehow Winiarski could be right - that BRASS was used for the rudder shoe in the Ariel.


But that has to be one of the most unfortunate admissions by a professional purveyor of bronze fittings that I'll ever hear.:eek:

*Alberg might have said (had he known!) "Kopa grisen i sacken!"
There's a cat in the sack - what you think is a fat suckling pig is a stray cat.
What kind of pig is in your shoe? What kind of 'bronze' is in your fitting?

Rudder shoe discussion is at: http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...read.php?t=583

Here is a very short paper by Prof Stephen C. Dexter from the University of Delaware Sea Grant Program. Short but compact with implications. Obviously I'm fascinated by the subject - and there are many commonly held misconceptions this read might start to unravel. Including my own!

This paper has a revealing galvanic series table referenced 'in flowing seawater'.
Which is exactly where we want to be when discussing the problem.
Manganese bronze and silicon bronze are cheek by jowl with each other in the table having a close voltage range. Here I discover the 300 s.s. are closer to the cathodic or noble end of the series.

So my assumption that copper alloys are more noble than stainless is WRONG.
Stainless has more problems than bronze like crevice corrosion and changing voltages when covered with slime.
And I might add, that while the voltage range is amazingly close with M.B. and S.B., the one overloaded with zinc is more prone to falling apart than the nearly pure copper alloy.

This table shows why we do not want 300 steel in our bronze shoe. And it explains the phenomena I saw on my Ariel's rudder shoe.

It also shows the surprising over-lapping voltage range between manganese bronze and silicon bronze. Either one can be anode or cathode in a galvanic couple "depending on exact exposure conditions." So that's a good reason to add a third more anodic metal in the form of zinc - if you have that going with those two..... M. bronze shoe and S. bronze shaft, or......

Galvanic Corrosion Final
www.ocean.udel.edu/mas/masnotes/corrosion.pdf

Worked on the rudder a bit more this w-end. Dug out all the bad wormy wood and backfilled with thickened epoxy. Decided to give her a few coats of epoxy. I don't intend to "seal" it but rather using the resin to beef up the punky wood, smooth the surface and fill some of the cracks.

Two more coats and this baby is done. At least for the time being!

Andrew

just as a belt and suspenders measure, i you might want to smear some 3M 5200 along the joint between the resin and the rudder shaft. The dissimilar material may leave you with a path for water intrusion into the rudder core. While the rudder is out, for an afternoon worth of fiberglass and sanding, you could fix it for good....

cheers,
bill@ariel231
;)

By the way you are really close to having a long term solution here (mine has been in service about 11 years now with no sign of splitting or water entry, take a look at posts #259-#263 in this thread).

gotta listen to bill on this.
5200 in the metal to wood seams if you are launching now is a good call.

Depending on how much water is still 'logged' in the wood of a rudder, it could conceivably be successful to GLASS a rudder with a few layers of CLOTH and EPOXY. Arguably the wood is still swelled throughout most of its interior and is 'equalized'. If the water content in the wood was close to 20%, but the surface dry enough for regular epoxy laminations, who's to say it wouldn't work?
If your rudder there in the photos has been very dry, back in the water the swelling of the wood WILL crack the thickened epoxy. There is always the exception, the stuff may not crack because the rudder is old enough to be almost inert. The blade is also well shaped and thin enough to be successfully subdued with frp but not gelled epoxy.
Baking the planks in the sun would, could shrink and loosen it up and open up the surface radically. And immersion in water will tighten it up. Swell seams closed again. And reduce the wobble of the planks on their bolts. Wood is amazing.

In my book the only certain useful epoxy on an old plank rudder is to dress the wood in penetrating epoxy. No more than two coats, loading creates a gummy mess. Goes for a brand new one also. The commercial stuff is very flexible and would not contest the movement of the wood. It would be a sealer and provide a better base for epoxy primer and bottom paint. And add worm protection. You can make a credible penetrating sealer by thinning combined two-part laminating epoxy with xylene.

If you are going to use the present rudder as is - as a core for fiberglassing - you will have to put many layers of cloth to defeat the core's swelling. It may be nearly impossible.
If you strip the old mahogany from the shafts, you could replace it with plywood. The method is described here in this thread. (see pg 11, 153>) But does not describe the glassing step.
You'd rout in coves where the bolts are and sandwich them between two layers of meranti-aguaply. You may not need even to remove the bolts from the shaft. Then apply glass cloth around well prepared bronze rod and
shaped ply. Ply is not going to swell like planks.

[What countless skippers (well, maybe they could be counted:p) have discovered is that both polyester and epoxy allow moisture and or water vapor to enter what the plastics are covering. Depending on how thorough the glass job, it's only a matter of time.
The rudder with the least future problems has a closed cell pvc foam core.]

What's good about this plywood method is that you can use what you have - if the metal is in good condition - and end up with another 40year rudder. Your investment is in the plywood, epoxy and cloth.
imco, ebb

Bill@Ariel231 HAS SUCCESSFULLY COVERED A PLANK RUDDER.

I would go ahead NOW and do the deed exactly as he describes.

OK will do!

What purpose does the underlay of matt serve in Bill's method? Why not use just 3 x cloth?

Andrew

the mat just builds up thickness faster than an equivalent amount of cloth and it handles irregular surfaces pretty well. given you have covered the surface with resin, the cloth alone may be a good approach. i went with 1 layer of 1.5oz mat and two layers of 6oz cloth. 5 to 6 layers of 6oz cloth may be the equivalent for depth of the whole laminate.

the area that will need particular attention will be where the shaft enters and exits the rudder. the topmost joint is the one most likely to twist. This area in particular got attention on A-231 with the core cut back a bit replaced with thickened epoxy, 'glass and a bit o'3m5200 added for good measure

good luck
bill@ariel231:)

p.s. we of course look forward to pictures, unfortunately i failed to photograph my rudder as a work in progress.

I applied a few layers of glass to my rudder this w-end. Following Bill's how to guide first dug out then backfilled problem locations with thickened. Next applied 3 layers of cloth to each side. Then I added 2 layers to each edge. Still to come one more layer on the side and then a final wrap around on the edge. That will give a four layer side and a three layer edge. Of course I sanded each layer smooth before laying on the next. Didn't take as many pics as I should have but the epoxy was flying!!!

Andrew

Andrew

looks great... am i missing something. where is the hole for the rudder strap (maybe it's just the resolution of the picture)?

mean while.. i've opened the top of my rudder (A-231) for a look around after a 11 years of service. yup, as expected the core was moist around the entry point for the rudder shaft. and mostly dry again about a hand span away. I'll post some pictures this weekend.

cheers,
bill@ariel231:)

No nothing missing. I plan to rout out a new slot for the grungeon strap. This will be done in the region of thickened epoxy you see in the picture.

One thing that I'm a bit unclear about is the whole issue of water in the rudder. Now a "naked" rudder must be saturated with water. I know mine was even with all that bottom paint. An encapsulated rudder may also get a bit wet. So what's the difference between these scenarios. Does the encapsulation provide a better environment for rot (lack of fresh seawater exchange, low O2 gradient, darkness?).

I am hoping that this rudder glass job will provide me with service until at least the next haulout. Maybe, if I'm lucky, longer than that. I feel good about the rudder itself now but the bronze is is fairly poor condition.

Will post finished product pics shortly.

Andrew

Andrew

for me, skinning the rudder it was a chance to bind together a loose collection of parts with a mix of prior repairs into a solid whole. A side benefit is a smooth skin. it's actually pretty dry in there since the skin has not delaminated. i make a habit to check this every season by sounding the rudder with a mallet or screw driver handle. if it were really soaked, i'd strip the glass back, dry it out and start again.

not too worried about rot, it takes both water AND air to be an issue. This is the first season i've seen any change on A-231, and the repair is a small region where the rudder shaft enters the blade. I opened the rudder out of curiosity as much as any other reason.

cheers,
bill@ariel231

ps. Now i understand what you are doing with the slot for the rudder strap (i did the same thing with a dremel).