Help! Rudder cracks and weeping...

J

jmcelwee

Member I
Hi everyone,

New owner of a '84 28+, and this is the first season we've put it up on the hard (here in New England). I was working on the boat today, and noticed that the rudder was showing several rust-like leaks, coming from some small cracks (photo below)....

I'm assuming this is bad. My guess is that there's water in the rudder, and when it froze, it expanded, creating these cracks and allowing some of the water to leak out. Anyone else had this happen? Is this common? Should I be concerned? Do I need to do some major repairs in the spring once it thaws out again?

Any advice would be very appreciated!
-Josh




rudder_compressed.jpg
 

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F

Frank Langer

1984 Ericson 30+, Nanaimo, BC
Josh, if you do a search on this site you will find lots of posts about rudder repair. I think your diagnosis is correct, and the rudder will need to be rebuilt. There are posts that show what the inside structure looks like. Most seem to get the rudder rebuilt--the Foss company comes to mind, located in California and Florida. While not an insignificant repair, others have done it and reported positive results.

Good luck with it!

Frank
 
R

rwthomas1

Sustaining Partner
That is not a good sign. There is no way to know how bad the corrosion of the armature inside the rudder is. The fact that significant rust staining is running out of the cracks would lead me to believe that its not safe anymore. Foss Foam in California can rebuild the rudder, using the same armature if its good, or repair the armature, or even replace it if needed. I had the rudder on my boat done and I got lucky the armature was okay and reused. The bad part about hidden corrosion like this is it will fail when loaded higher than normal, like bad weather, when you likely need the rudder most. It sucks when you have this problem but a new rudder is simply peace of mind. RT
 
tenders

tenders

Innocent Bystander
I had a similar-looking situation on my '69's rudder, which gradually got worse over 10 years or so. My various attempts at patching over this time finally resulted in a rudder that was not very airfoil-shaped, and I determined that the water in there was never going to get out, even after an entire season on the hard.

I replaced it with a Foss - their rudderstock, my measurements, I've posted about this elsewhere on the site. The new rudder has a slightly better design and is working fine. It required a tiny bit of grinding on the boat to fit under the hull.

When I dug into the old rudder with a Sawzall, it was a lot stronger than I expected. There was moisture all over the place but it didn't seem to compromise the strength of the foam, and the rudder post was a little rusty but certainly wasn't going anywhere.

I think you need to replace your rudder too. But by the same token I don't think you're going to lose it any time soon.
 
J

jmcelwee

Member I
Yikes!

Wow, David, I can say that looks like it was quite the project! I'm going to have to go with the 'ship it to California' route, as I'm sure my garage would end up covered floor to ceiling with foam if I tried this myself. :)

Emerald said:
As others have confirmed, you need to rebuild or replace this. If you're up for an adventure, you might be able to do this yourself. Here's a link to my rudder rebuild on Emerald:

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

Have fun! :egrin:
Click to expand...
 
E

Emerald

Moderator
I'd be errant if I didn't give proper credit to Goslings for moral support as we sat there listening to it all creak as the foam expanded and the washers deformed on the 1/2" bolts! :cheers:
 
W

Walter Pearson

Member III
Josh, I'm also for repair or replacement. My '76 E27 rudder did not appear to weep nearly as much as yours, but Foss found internal failures in welded joints when it was remade. If we get 25+ years out of these rudders, maybe it isn't worth thinking about, but I still wonder where the water gets in. My suspicion is that for us in latitudes with freeze/thaw cycles, there may be a weak link at the transition between the post and the rudder caused by the difference in expansion coefficients. Then when a little water gets in, the freeze expansion just accelerates the process. When I got my rudder back, I ground out a slight chamfer there and filled with 3M 5200 hoping to get adhesion to all the dissimilar materials and provide some amount of give to prevent a crack at that joint. Might be overkill, but I felt better.
 
Mark F

Mark F

Contributing Partner
Blogs Author
Hi Walter,

Did you have your E27 rudder replaced with the original design or an updated one?
 
W

Walter Pearson

Member III
It was remade to the original shape. I did some core sampling and continued to see dampness. I then cut off some of the trailing edge and the bottom to make it easier to ship. Those pieces were somewhat waterlogged and it was apparent that the foamed interior was just not going to dry out easily (as some suggested was a possible solution). It sure was a lot lighter and easier to handle when it came back.
 
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