Rudder

I pulled our Impact's rudder post today (Hull # 105, I think that means 5th boat). All that is left after the rudder broke is the 3 ft stainless pipe rudder stock with about 2 inches left below the water line. Welded to the end is an 8 inch horizontal tab for the blade. There appears to be a broken weld at the end of the tube stock. How was the blade attached on these rudders? Was there any steel below this point or just fibreglass?

Impact lost her rudder in an offshore race on Saturday night. 45 kt winds made for an exciting time in the 6 ft seas and lightning. We were racing in the Argosy Rose Bowl overnight race. Southwest winds of around 20-25kts had been pushing us at up to 11knots down a 35 mile leg to Oshawa. (You racers won't be surprised to hear that we passed a lot of boats and were in first place and grinning!). The squall from behind was approaching at around 10pm so we doused the kite, put a reef in the main and then got hit by the front. After an exciting roundup, the steering went soft. Something there, but we could neither gybe back to our course, nor tack around. We were done for this race (not the exact language I used). We jury-rigged our "Thor Heyerdahl" emergency rudder by cutting some notches in the lower companion way washboard and then lashing it to the spinnaker pole. We were now approximately 6 miles south of the Ontario shoreline and tried to steer to a safe harbour...it was a long night. Some or all of the rudder was still hanging there so the boat would regularly do a 360 as we tried to zig zag to shore. Fog and heavy rain came next and the waves remained. Fortunately the wind subsided and we were able to motor at about 2 knots. Safely made it into Whitby harbour where we toasted our adventure at 2:30am and slept well at anchor.

Now it's a new day. Any suggestions on where to order a new rudder? From feeling under the boat, there is still the metal rudder stock and some metal fitting in the water. I am guessing that the skin of the rudder torqued free and finally fell off during our viking expedition to shore. Thanks for any suggestions, Doug 416-544-0231

Paul

Quite often in the winter we sail uphill for close to an hour with winds gusting between 4-35 Knots with shifts of 25-30 deg. The Main trimmer many times is "out" of traveller very quickly and then starts dumping sheet. As the driver I try and drive off the leech of the lapper. We almost never reef, but as a hole carry alot of weight 1200+. The backstay is constently adjusted. What we have found, that in out PHRF fleet the more gusty and shifty the wind is the better we do. In this type of condition I tend to steer by feel only with a constent check on boat speed.

My point of the rudder post was my opinion that the standard class rudder was deep enough and that most spin-outs where a function of trim.

We too try and get weight out of the ends. We have found in under 10 knots at all angles the boat likes weight forward. Downhill in the light stuff I drive from in front of the traveller with at least two crew at or forward of the mast.

The original  rudder is a robust design however with the availability on composite materails I can see the advantage of losing a considerable amount of weight by going to a carbon stock.

John

Did you use the same stock (stainless pipe) for the new rudder? I would be interested in getting more wieght out of the back end off the boat... perhaps a composite shaft would be a good idea.

I sail in Vancouver and at times in heavy air and nasty seas. I find the only upwind rudder control problems are in very gusty/shifty conditions where the mainsheet trimmer is simply not fast enough.

Downwind wind the boat is generally moving fast enough that there is lots of bite.

Did you take a hit on your PHRF rating?

I have been sailing a boat in Boston, Laser #138, with the larger rudder.  This was my first season with the boat and we have done very well, winning our season Wednesday night series and our class at the PHRF New England Championships.

At the first day of the PHRF New Englands in Marblehead we had 25 knot winds from the North East with 8 foot seas.  I thought the boat was very well behaved and never had any issue with rounding up because of steerage loss.  Of course I have nothing to compare this to because I never sailed with the smaller rudder, but the helm seems to be very well balanced.  I don't think I have ever sailed a boat with such neutral helm, even in a blow.   I did sail the boat as flat as possible with very twisted sails, more so than our competition.   We didn't always point as high, but we were fast. 

I just installed a new rudder from the old stock rudder.  It was designed by Lief Bailey in Los Angeles.  It is approximately 9 inches long and 2 inches narrower from fore to aft and about same wetted surface.  Used it on last Friday night race.  What a difference.  The boat goes straight even when healed in a puff of wind.  I have not tried it in the Bay (San Francisco) but expect to go straighter without roundups as often.  I wish we had it on the Farralones Race.  We rounded up about 10 times coming back into the Bay but were did get up to 14 kts a couple of times. 

Has anyone else used a longer rudder?  What was your experience with the new compared to the old rudder?