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Rudder repair on E27

John Read

Junior Member
Just purchased an E27. Just finished winterizing. I have removed the rudder to repair some surface cracks. Have routed out numerous cracks and removed several areas where water has creeped under fiberglass.
Has anyone got any experience with these foam/steel rudder repairs? I would appreciate any input.
I also pulled my prop shaft to replace the cutlass bearing. Any "heads up" on this subject.
Thanks. John
 

escapade

Inactive Member
John;
Yep, been there, done that. Your best bet is to put the rudder in a dry place for at least a couple of months to allow it to dry out completely. Then grind back on a slight angle until you have a strip aproxamately 1 1/2 to 2" wide of the FRP laminate over the foam core. This should be firmly attached to the foam core yet. If not continue to grind until you get a solid surface. Then apply an epoxy adhesive (West System or equivlent) and 3 to 4 layers of fiberglass cloth. Fill over this with an epoxy filler and sand smooth & fair. After that then you apply an epoxy barrier coat and bottom paint & reinstall.
This sounds like a lot of extra work but unless you follow this procedure you will end up with more cracks. This is because rudders flex a small amount and if you just fill in the cracks the flexing will cause the crack to reappear along side of your repair. The fiberglass cloth reinforces the repair (becomes part of the FRP lay-up) and will last much longer. It all depends if you want to do a little more work now or do it again in a couple years.
Good luck & sail fast Bud E34 "Escapade"
 

Geoff Johnson

Fellow Ericson Owner
When I got my boat in 1996 the rudder was a mess with cracks and delamination in the middle and delamination/opening seams on the top, leading edge and trailing edge. I made all repairs with the rudder in place, injecting epoxy into the delamination voids in the middle (beginning with the lower holes until the epoxy came out those higher up - then taping the holes) and applying fiberglass tape with epoxy over the opening seams. I did not apply any fiberglass to the middle of the rudder. I also used a Dremel tool to rout out around the SS rudder stock and applied 5200 to keep water from entering there. The rudder has been perfect ever since. (Out of an excess of caution, I even had the yard core the rudder to check the welds - they were fine even though brown stains had been coming from around the rudder stock).

PS As recommended by Foss Foam on its web site, I also paint the rudder white to keep the sun from overheating it (the probable cause of the delamination) when the boat is out of the water.
 

Walter Pearson

Member III
John,
The remedy might depend on the amount of water in the foam core and whether it's limited to the surface or not. My '76 E27 rudder must have allowed a lot of the moisture intrusion between the stainless tube and the fiberglass/foam portion - probably over a number of years with plenty of freeze/thaw cycles too. I doubt it would have dried out between seasons. When core samples indicated so much of the core was saturated, I shipped it to Foss Co. (in CA) and they rebuilt it to original condition. They had to do some welding to repair some corrosion between the SS tube and the internal plate (which I understand is not stainless like the tubing), so I'm glad I went the expensive route ($350 in 2000).

The rebuilt rudder was noticeably lighter than when I dropped the old - which helped eliminate some of the stern squat that my boat had. Don't know if that is common with E27s.

One thing I did with the rebuilt rudder was to grind out a groove in the fiberglass where the stainless tube meets the upper surface and filled it with 3M 5200. This should adhere to both materials and flex to prevent cracks and future leaks there due to the dissimilar properties.
 
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