Whilst competing in the Round Island Race in EMOYENI on the 27th June the rudder broke.
The rudder now flexes dramatically and I can only steer going slowly under engine.
Has anyone recently had a new rudder made? Are any improvements suggested to strengthen the design?
Failure occurred whilst reaching with spinnaker.
Emoyeni is based at Portchester Creek, in Portsmouth Harbour.
I intend to notify my insurers, and need to find where to source a replacement and appropriate quotes.
Many thanks, Richard Harvey

Hello Richard
Is this a glass sheathed wooden blade ?
If so, believe it or not it might well be repairable . I would assume the sheathing had split on one side .
The core would need drying and then the split veeing out and repairing . These rudders are just like performance dinghy rudders so a dinghy builder will know what to do.

Jan
325/32
Blue Moon

Hi Jan
The rudder has a hard foam core and I assume a metal strengthener. There is no sign of any wood, although I think that may well be the way forward for a replacement. The flexing experienced looked to be in excess of 45 degrees, viewed whilst going along.
Richard
Emoyeni

Hi Richard
Don't really like the idea of the foam core, once wet very difficult to dry and not as good as wood in compression. As Parkers do not seem to be functioning any more, I would be tempted to talk to either a racing dinghy builder or one of the foil builders and tell them you want a wood core.

Best of luck

Jan Newman
325/32
Blue Moon

Hi Richard ,
On my last super-seal I had the same problem: a long crack throuogh the rudder head which was moving a little. I took the rudder to a ship yard near my home.He said to me that he could repear. He made 3 long holes inside the rudder from the top to the bottom ( but he stooped at about 20 centimeters from the bottom) and put inside 3 carbon rodes fixed by epoxy and he did a new skin instead the long crack. The rudder didn't move after . The rudder was not made in wood. On my new Parker 325 I found also a long crack at the same place but the core is in wood and I have made only a new epoxy stratification.Everybody must have a lok on the rudder top!
Hopping that my litlle experience could help you.
Best of luck.
Pascal Claeyssens
325/27 Maruli

Hi Richard,

Only just seen this post, so here are my thoughts. At my sailing club in Poole there are 4 Super Seal 26s, and the oldest is a Baker version and has had the rudder blade fail twice, in exactly the manner you describe. The first blade broke off completely and was replaced with (I believe) a second hand blade which subsequently failed in the same way. Both these blades looked to be a thick(ish) grp skin, with a foam core. The Rudder on my Super Seal 26 Evangeline (No. 97 and the first built by Parkers) is definitely a hardwood core, with a very thin skin of fibreglass over the outside to protect it. A couple of years ago a large part of the sheathing (where the blade sits in the rudder stock) had become detached from the wood so I cut it away. cleaned and dried everything then stuck it back down with epoxy. The basic core/srength of the blade comes from the wood, which is a dark red colour, so I would guess is either mahogany or sapele.

As Jan (above) says, the construction is very similar to most dinghies so I don't doubt a wooden dinghy manufacturer should be able to help you out. I can't see that the fibreglass skin provides anything other than ease of maintenance, and protection for the wood, so I don't really see why you couldn't make a new rudder solely out of hard wood and varnish it. Any good carpenter ought to be able to do it.

The two Evolution 26s which I've sailed on, which are very similar boats to the Super Seal, both had varnished wooden rudder blades, albent vertically lifting rather than swinging.

Let us know how you get on.

John

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Hi,

We had a rudder failure on our SS26 zwo months ago. The original rudder had a hard foam core and metal strengtheners. As we're both naval architects, we build the new rudder ourselves. We decided to build a glass sheathed wooden blade based on a NACA009 profile that we adjusted to the size of our old rudder. If anyone's interested in the 3D modell of it, our 2D drawings and/or pictures of the building progress, feel free to contact! It took us a full weekend + every evening during the following week to build it. The rudder has been working fine during the last five weeks even with +20kts wind.

Anne

Hello AnneK,
Your detailed information is likely to prove invaluable to all SS and P27 owners at some time or other so please consider uploading all relevant data to the articles section.It looks as if you wasted no time at all in getting back afloat!
Many thanks,
PeterL
PS27 #131 Fulmar