Rudders

[Seth]

Below is a reply from Alan Andrews-one of my favorite Yacht Designers-I had asked him what he thought of the E-38 Rudder-both on it's own merit and in comparison to the well established issue with the 35-2 and 32-2.
Note that the 2 38's (Cantata and Valentich's boat) were raced successfully in Socal, and both had rudder mods by Alan..

Read and enjoy:


"The old Ericson 35-2, if I recall correctly, is the Bruce King design from about 1970. If this is the boat, then a new rudder would certainly improve the boat. These boats had control problems in a breeze. This was probably due to several factors that include:

a) heavier displacement for W.L. length resulting in large waves and a big trough in between for the boat to wallow from side to side in.

b) relatively shallow rudder span resulting in loss of efficiency when boat heels and top of rudder comes out of water

c) IIRC, top of rudder chord is reduced which may lead to reduced end plating against bottom of hull.

d) A deeper rudder would likely need a stronger post but one can’t be sure w/o running the numbers.

The 38's had a different issue altogether.

If I recall, we added to the Cantata E-38 rudder in the same manner as adding to Chuck Valentich’s rudder. It was a big help. The big problem with the E-38’s was that the rudder ends on the skeg, not against the bottom of the hull. So, when the rudder is partially turned, it had no end plate at the top. The efficiency of the rudder is then about half of what it was before. If the skeg had ended forward of the rudder post and the rudder extended to the hull, then it would have end plated against the hull and the smaller rudder probably would have worked fine."



Cheers,



Alan


Interesting perspective, No?

Seth

 

[gareth harris]

Seth - I am curious about replacing the post, is he refering to a thicker post that would need larger hardware in the cockpit?
Since I am replacing my cockpit deck and rudder, I could replace anything else necessary in the process.

Gareth
Freyja E35 #241 1972

 

[Seth]

Gareth,

Alan was referring to a beefier post and internal fin at the minimum. There are actually a few options for this rudder-one of them being a modified Cal 40 rudder-If you are going that far-you would hate yourself if you did not upgrade-it makes that big if a difference on your boat. And if it were me, I would likely go up slightly in diameter and fit some of the current style upper and lower bearings-they are awesome-IIRC-you plan on some extended voyaging-you need to look at this seriously. When the time comes we can work through specifics.
Cheers,
S

 

[Bill Sanborn]

I have '79 E29 with an Autohelm 3000 and a Navik Winvane. Neither work very well on a broad reach, slightly better on a run depending on wind speed.

I have been wondering if a larger rudder would provide a faster response to these steering systems making them more effective off the wind. Possibly a stock rudder from a larger Ericson which could be installed without expensive modifications? Other possibilites are using a tiller pilot to drive the Navik and/or using a larger sprocket in the wheel.

The boat is standard rig, shoal draft, wheel steering.

I would appreciate any thoughts you might have.

 

[Seth]

29 rudders

The closest, bigger rudder would be from a 32-2. You would have to do some re-shaping at the top-but it might work. IIRC, the 32-2 has a 3/4" SS rudder post-but I don't remember the size of the 29 rudder-Either way, you will need to compare shaft diameters first to get an idea of how uch work it will take.

Will it help your problem? Yes-and you will go upwind better as well.

Where are you located?-Fincofab in Long Beach has all of the Ericson rudder molds..

S

 

[clayton]

This doesn't make sense?...

"The big problem with the E-38’s was that the rudder ends on the skeg, not against the bottom of the hull.'

On a friend's '87 E38-200, there is no skeg, just a free-standing spade up close to the hull. Did early 38's have a different rudder assembly? The line drawings shown in the Practical Sailor review show a free-standing rudder with no skeg. Our '89 32-200 has a partial skeg in front of the top 3" +/- of the leading edge, but nothing like this on the 38-200.

Clayton

 

[Martin King]

Fincofab is in Santa Ana, and they do not have all of the Ericson
rudders. In fact, they lost the 39 rudder mold in their last move.

Martin

 

[ted_reshetiloff]

My 89' E 38-200 has the skeg above the trailing edge as mentioned.

Ted Reshetiloff

 

[jmoses]

Ericson goof-up on the E-35 MKII - New Rudder comments

gareth,

The issue with the E-35 MKII's, as I was told by a So. Cal Yacht designer that worked a bit with Ericson in 70's, was that Ericson attempted to save a few pennies on the 1970's E-35 MKII's by putting the E-32 rudder on it. As a result, I don't see how the E-32 rudder would improve the situation. He stated that Bruce King was a bit peeved about the situation as well as the use of the A-4 as he originally speced out a diesel (for weight and power).

Oh well.....I can attest to the control issues....LOL... I think I'd called it down right squirrely in some cases - especially down wind or with head wind.

However, it was solved with a CCYD designed rudder. The company has plans for either modifying your current rudder or fabricating a new one (or shall I say did have....the designer has retired). If using the old rudder, it provides details on beefing up the old rudder stock by having a stainless steel pipe inserted into the current hollow tube and plug welding it to the old shaft (amongts other improvements).

I actually found one of the CCYD rudders (new) here in San Fran 4 years ago that was tweaked: kevlar leading edge, carbon fiber wrapped, solid foam core, almost a solid stainless steel shaft, etc. It was built by an "America True" (Dawne Riley's America's Cup boat) composite fabricator. I snapped it up for $1,000.....WHAT A DIFFERENCE! The boat now steers like a champ and I think this is what Bruce King originally speced out. If not, it's a tremendous improvement. Plus I have a chunk of an America's Cup boat hanging on my stern.....LOL ....Like that helps me any.

I have the CCYD plans which are 4 blueprint sized pages of various NACA foils, shaft designs (old and new), rudder internel fin improvement (old and new), beefing up old rudder, etc. The rudder is bullet proof and after 4 years of service has not shown any problems.

As for bearings? I banged out the old lower bronze bearing and dropped in a Delrin bearing machined to within 0.001" tolerences at a local machine shop. It is still tight as a drum after the install and after much abuse with San Fran Bay' gales.

Let me know if you'd like to review the plans.

John M.

 

[Seth]

Thanks for the update

Thanks Martin-obviously my info is out of date-I should have said they have MOST of them, and I have not spoken with them in about 18 months-so thanks again for keeping this honest and accurate.

While I have not seen the CCYD rudder, it sounds like a good approach-especially if you can get one for a grand-the last time I checked on one with FincoFab-it was about $1800-$2000 (STILL A GREAT DEAL).

Either way, for the plans you have for the boat (North Atlantic)-I would certainly do something about the rudder.

BTW- "Providence" a successful 35-2 here in Chicago did very well in last weekend's Tri-State Regatta-beating MANY modern and classically successful PHRF boats..
Cheers,
S

 

[wurzner]

Upgraded my Rudder with Foss CA ~$900 using old shaft

When I purchased my boat and found the amount of osmotic blisters on the hull, it gave me concerns about the rudder (1977 E32). In the course of removing the foam from the shaft, I found that the rudder integrity was fine but only in the process of destructive testing. I had Foss make me a new rudder extending the length using the modified Cal 40 rudder, but doing the contours so it fit the boat still (you'd have to see the leading edge cutouts to know what I'm talking about). Don at Foss said I didn't need to replace the stainless (it was in great shape) so a few weeks later, I had a nice new rudder for around 900 dollars plus round trip shipping from Seattle to So Cal. The boat still rounds up as you would want it to when heeled over, but not prematurely like it use to. It is also a lot easier to balance the helm in heavier winds and let work on the autopilot. Also, I have piece of mind knowing that the core is not saturated. I would guess he lengthened it between 8-12 inches. Not too much to put undue stress on the hardware (based on his knowledge, not mine), but sufficient to improve the undersized rudder characteristics. Overall, I'm very satisfied.

Shaun