Chance I continue to be impressed with your work. I am even more impressed when I think you are planning on selling Ceili. You are doing such a fine job on the restoration work you are doing that I have a hard time believing you will be able to part with her when she is done.

So tell me, it looks like the halves are made from 12MM meranti which would make the current thickness close to 1" of the new rudder. Do you plan to thicken the rudder directly behind the keelpost to more closely match the thickness of the keel and if so what is your plan of action to do that without limiting the swing of the rudder? It appears in one of your pictures that you put a radius on the forward edge of the Meranti. What is your plan of action for that area? Will you eventually wrap the bronze keelpost with glass or try to seal the point where they come together without wrapping it?

My own thoughts on the thickness of the rudder directly behind the keelpost are that there is a chance we are creating more turbulance than we are trying to eliminate by thickening the rudder there. But it is only a guess and I certainly do not know the answer. The necessary gap between the aft end of the keel and the forward end of the rudder will create a level of turbulance and do we increase it or decrease it by thickening the forward edge of the rudder? Someone smarter than me would need to answer that question for me.