Bent rudder shaft

I was coming down the port Allen cancel and hit something not marked on charts

My rudder is bent backwards and can't turn, I'm going to try to drop in water, now tied here at ship yard in Amelia, LA

Current plan to to have the ship yard straighten it back out, if it will just drop out

Just wondering if there are special concerns I should tell them about
The I'm told they straighten shafts all the time, but not with fiberglass attached so my sailboat is causing some concern for a shop yard that works metal boats

Or alternate ideas?

Wow, that's a bummer Carlton.
A couple years ago Shawn replaced a rudder in the water and left us some pretty good documentation. I think there are more videos on YT than he posted here. It's not a 1:1 situation, a different boat, and he had clear, warm water to work in. But there may be some useful info in his accounts.
Good luck!
Jeff

If you will be in the water or have a diver down there trying to remove it, keep in mind that if you are pulling and pushing on the rudder, you can get a lot of leverage and possibly do damage to where the rudder tube is bonded to the hull. I've seen that happen when trying to *insert* a rudder with a boat in the water, which is much more likely to cause damage than what you are doing, which is dropping it. But still, just be aware that it is possible to damage the rudder tube bonds with the leverage that a partially-inserted rudder provides. You'll definitely want to keep this in mind particularly if you reinstall the rudder with the boat still in the water.

@EngineerSailing - After looking at Shawn's post some more, I realize he had the rudder installed on land. I seem to remember somewhere here, someone told of doing a rudder swap while the boat was in the water. Maybe you can find it with further searching. Sorry for the misdirection, Carlton.

Ouch, sorry to hear that . If there is any possible way to pull it out for repair I would strongly suggest that option. The odds are that if you hit something hard enough to make the rudder inoperable it likely did some damage to the rudder shell. And as you said trying to straighten and true up the shaft with a big piece of fiberglass attached is well....questionable. It may have also damaged the hull/rudder tube which you should check very closely and hard to do in the water. Best of luck on whatever you decide and let us know how it goes.

I remember a family friend removing the rudder on an 32-2 in the water...the rudder came out quite easily and bobbed to the surface once clear of the hull.

The challenge was getting the quite buoyant rudder deep enough and steady enough to put back

Mark David said:

I remember a family friend removing the rudder on an 32-2 in the water...the rudder came out quite easily and bobbed to the surface once clear of the hull.

The challenge was getting the quite buoyant rudder deep enough and steady enough to put back

Click to expand...

I've done it on two boats. The diver strapped diving weights to the rudder to get it in the right position.

Note that if the rudder has become waterlogged it may not necessarily float. For dropping it in the water I'd suggest looping a line underneath the bottom of the rudder blade and tying each end off to the stern cleats, port and starboard to keep it in place as you prepare to drop it.

When I loosened the set screws holding the rudder shaft up it with some pushing dropped about an inch.
then it stopped
I rotates quite freely now, but will not go down or up with an amount of forcing it i'm comfortable with ( I tied my 32# anchor to the rudder to help pull it down, but no drop only rotates)
I've reattached the quadrant and going to go ahead and install my hydrovane

I'm about 100miles down the ICW from the sailboat marinas on the other side of New Orleans, I plan to just leave the rudder as is with the hydrovane to help until I can get pulled from the water with help that knows fiberglass boats.

Down side is my plan of sailing and fishing in the gulf next week is cancelled.

Those that have used SeaBrook and or SeaChest please DM your thoughts and experience

Prairie Schooner said:

I seem to remember somewhere here, someone told of doing a rudder swap while the boat was in the water.

Click to expand...

Posters name is Grizz. Boat is shoestring an O34. Lost his rudder on the Chicago to Mackinac race in '17 if that helps the search.