Rudder cracks anyone?

[Stugy]

Here is another issue with my E27,
My rudder has developed cracks on the gelcoat, I don't think there is any water sipping on the inside but I would like to fill the cracks before I paint it and launch it for the season.
I was wondering if anyone has any experience fixing these cracks in the rudder also how common is for the rudder to develop the cracks and what is the best compound to fix it.

Thank you in advanced.

 

[BrianP]

rudder

Check the cracks and see if it is an actual crack in the glass, if so repair with fiberglass properly, barrier coat well then gell coat. thats the basics. I had one in mine and had it glassed in.

 

[Guy Stevens]

Don't guess DRILL

Water in the rudder can severely comprimise the armature of the rudder and the rudder shaft. DON'T guess if there is any water in it, drill two or three holes in the bottom of the rudder and see what comes out!

Water will most likely come out. Then you have to evaluate what the armature and shaft most likely look like. If the water is severely discolored with rust ect, then you might want to start thinking about what to do with it. If it is pretty clear then you might be ok with it.

Most of the cracks are from one or two things. Water already in the rudder, freezing if you are in one of those nothern states where this kind of thing happens. Or there is already some kind of a structural problem going on with the rudder possibly from the water intrusion already. This results in stress on the skin and fractures. In either case the minimum is that the cracks have to be FIXED, not just covered over.

Lots of ways to go about fixing it, but a large amount of the water ingress in my experience comes from the joint of the rudder shaft to the top of the rudder. The best fix that I have come up with is to dremmel a small channel in the figerglass around where it meets the shaft, not going through the glass, but a dip say somewhere between 1\16th and 1\8th inch in diameter, so that one side of the groove is the glass skin, and the other side of the groove is the rudder shaft. Then filling it with a good quality marine sealant, such as 4200 or sikaflex 291.

Guy

 

[Stugy]

Picture

Here is a picture of the rudder, I will drill a hole at the bottom and see if any water comes out. The picture shows the rudder wet from washing the boat but you can see the cracks on the rudder,
should I dremel the crack and then fill it with resin?

 

[Emerald]

Hi,

I just did a complete recore of my rudder, and I'll throw out a couple things I discovered. If you have water, most likely it is fully saturated and needs to be recored. I discovered that the foam, even though it's not supposed to absorb water, does over long periods of time. I also discovered that the edge of the foam would dry, and if you dug beyond it, the foam was still water saturated, hence the need to recore it. I have a slightly different beast than you, but to get a feel for what a rudder recore project is like, check here:


http://home.comcast.net/~independence31/rudder/rudder-intro.html


Now, that said, I think the best bet for you would be to call Foss Foam in California. They were extremely helpful with my project, and you are probably a good candidate to send your rudder to them for a rebuild. Relatively speaking, their cost to do a rebuild is not that much (a friend was recently quoted 600 to rebuild his E-27 rudder), and given the importance of the rudder, this is one to take care of right. Here's their website:


http://www.fossfoam.com/


Some other thoughts, compared to the other E-27's I've seen, you've got a lot of space between the top of the rudder and the hull. The cracking you show is odd, and not consistent with the cracks I've seen in the past. Definatly want to check this one out.


-David
Independence 31
Emerald

 

[BrianP]

I agree with david on this one, those cracks are different than any I have seen. I had a crack in mine where someone tried to epoxy but cracked beside the epoxy they used. I had the marina look at it and we drilled holes also but had no water come out. We sanded the crack down and found no real stucture damage so it was glassed back in coated heavily with gell coat then the same with barrier coat [2000 - 2000e]on the whole rudder. My glass man and myself both agreed that if this fall the crack comes back or we get a water drip from it we will do a whole make over.

 

[Guy Stevens]

Frozzen

Those look a lot like rudder full of water then frozen cracks... Generally not good, that many and that bad, I would either redo it myself or send it off to Foss and have them remake the rudder.

Guy

 

[Jeff Asbury]

I know you will have your hands full enough with addressing your rudder problems, but I couldn't help but notice the lack of Zincs on you strut. It also looks like there is not much of one left on the prop shaft. Are you in fresh water? Here's a pic of my set up. I assume you must have a A-4 because of your 3 blade prop. My little Yanmar only requires a two blade.

I am very impressed with your web site and your rudder rebuild Emerald! What a undertaking!

 

[Stugy]

Hi Jeff, the picture was taken right after the boat last hauled out for winter storage. The zinc was almost gone and I ended up take them off. I keep the boat in the Boston harbor, in addition to put new zincs at the begining of each season in August (3 months into it) I replace the shaft zincs under water as they are always very corroded by then. Mine never had a zinc in the strut, as far as I know it is just fiberglass.
I usually have 2 zincs one between the strut and the hull and one after right next to prop. The engine is a Yanmar YSM, I got the boat with 2 props one double blade and this 3 blade one, the double blade prop could not push the boat if I went up againts the tide and was giving me 4 knots at 2,800 rpm. The 3 blade one pushes the boat real well and I can do 5.5 to 6 knots at 2,500 rpm but my 2 blade prop does not look like the one you have, your seems more pitched and looks like it has bigger blades.

 

[Jeff Asbury]

Thought it might have been a new boat to you. I think my strut is bronze. Interesting to know that the three blade worked better for you. What's the HP of your YSM? I have the older little 1GM10 Yanmar that is only rated at 8.3 HP. Pushes my E-27 at about 5.5 to 6 knots in most situations. I have been caught beating into the wind with a two knot current off Pt. Loma in San Diego where I was only making about 3 kts with a older 2 blade prop. Sorry, I can't recall what my pitch is. I feel my boat is a bit under powered on one hand, but on the other hand it just forces me to sail more and motor less.

 

[Stugy]

The engine is a YSM-8 which I think it has 8 HP. It is a single cylinder and even though it is a 1978 model it is incredibly reliable (Never had any problems). I just started it over the weekend and to my surprise ( I was expecting trouble) It started right up, the only concern I have is that the waterpump seemed to be leaking water then again I had a hose with running water hooked up to the intake and may have been too much water preassure from the fawcet. Need to investigate this further.

 

[Jeff Asbury]

Yeah, I had my share of problems with my water pump as well. Pesky little things. I rebuilt mine twice with new impeller and seals and just when I thought it was OK after about 5 hours running it started leaking again. Apparently the little shaft in the pump can develop scaring and new seals wont even help. So I broke down and bought a new one $200 bucks. As far a flushing your system, be careful. I just installed a flushing system with a valve and a quick release hose fitting. My mechanic advised me to only use a hose and a bucket that I would have to carry down to the galley so I never would put any pressure on the water pump and seals rather than risk hooking it up to the dock hose that puts out about 90 PSI. I guess it doesn't matter if you only turn the water on a little, the PSI is the same. I said that was a hassle and he recommended the other option. That was to buy a water pressure regulator with a gage and set it at the lowest setting of 10 PSI. They sell them at West Marine for 37.99. So far it has worked well for me. I am using Salt A Way and flushing after every other trip.

 

[Stugy]

Fixed rudder cracks

Well I just finished repairing my rudder.
I am posting what i did just in case anyone is interested or need to do this process.

1- I removed all the paint and sanded it to the bear fiber glass - very messy job..!
2- drilled 2 holes at the bottom of the rudder to drain any possible water accumulation. (none cameout)
3- I put a new layer of fiberglass cloth- wrapped around rudder and gave it a coat of West Epoxy resin 105 -with 205 hardener This system comes with pumps that makes it very easy to mix the correct resin/hardner ratio.
4- I painted 4 coats of resin on top of it and sanded it every 2nd application.
with 100 grit paper and an orbital sander to eliminate all bumps and imperfections. Although it is not pefect
I have to say Im very pleased with the results.
5- I grinded around the rudder post with a dremel tool and re-sealed with 4200.
Here is a before and after picture. If you have any questions please feel free to ask !

 

[Annapolis E-27]

So what did you find in the way of cracks once you got all the paint off and were down to the bare glass?

 

[Stugy]

When i got to the bare fiberglass I found the cracks were on the gelcoat and luckely there were no blisters, delamination, or structural demage. I just sanded it with 150 grit to smooth it out and prepare the surface to be re-glassed over. Then I used a combination of 100 and 150 grit in between coats of resin.

 

[rwthomas1]

Wow! Nice job, that solves that problem, probably permanently! RT

 

[Geoff Johnson]

I had horizontal cracks in my rudder like that when I bought my boat 10 years ago. In addition, the forward, top and aft seams had started to open exposing the core and there was delamination of the skin from the core around the area of the cracks. Since then I have injected epoxy into the areas of delamination, epoxy/taped all the seams, dremeled and 5200'd the shaft/rudder interface. I am reasonably confident the rudder is now sound since it rudder sounds very solid on sounding with a hammer, a 2" core sample showed the webbing welds to be in good shape with no saturation of the core and last year's survey, using a moisture meter, showed little moisture.

 

[rssailor]

West system

Stugy,
Beware, the four coats of West System resin you put on over the cloth will most likely be a problem later. You will get spider cracking anytime something hits the rudder hard. This will result in water getting inbetween layers of resin and causing it to peel off. Next time, you would have been better off to fair the epoxy and cloth with a fairing putty, then coated with a product like Interlux 2000.
My advice comes from first hand experiance with West System on the bottom of Moonglow. It was not a pretty picture after several seasons of sailing, anytime something had hit the bottom, the epoxy cracked and allowed water underneath and peeled. After dealing with this during two haul outs, I spent upwards of 100 hours sanding all of the west system off on the hull and then fairing it smooth and appling like four coats of Interlux 2000 and then painting the bottom with Awlgrip Awlstar 2000 blue I belive. Ryan

 

[Stugy]

Hi Ryan Thank you for the post. I will keep an eye on the rudder. The boat is only in for 6 months, I will check next haul out and possibly look into re-doing it if there are any problems. It seemed so solid with the resin though.

 

[Emerald]

Hi Ryan,

Just curious about the cracking problem you had with the epoxy. Did you use the barrier coat additive, or was it an epoxy only coating, and how many coats?

Thanks

-David
Independence 31
Emerald