Yeah, it's a full keel with attached rudder. I'm gonna use the windvane as the attachment point for the e-rudder. I figure if I lose use of the existing rudder due to impact with whatever it would be catastrophic. I'm going to have worse things to worry about...like water ingress. Am I wrong? I mean I'm sure there's other scenarios but I'm trying to wrap my mind around how I would jettison my rudder post with a dowel...especially if it is still attached at the bottom of the keel. Anyway, I trust you guys to make the right call.I don't recall what your boat is, but doesn't it have a full keel with attached rudder? I would take that into account if I was doing your inspection.
We're talking apples and oranges here, really. Those of us with spade rudders with a shaft coming up into the cockpit inside a tube to a tiller can probably knock the twisted rudder out using a long dowel and hammer (I've done that in the berth when I needed to work on the rudder.) If the tube didn't get cracked by the impact, it's sort of simple. Things get more complicated if normal wheel steering is involved since the rudder shaft comes up into the cockpit, but the rudder tube usually doesn't come thru the hull all the way to the cockpit sole - or in my case above. You'd have to figure out how to seal off the top of the tube inside the hull where the packing gland is. And, I think, remove the quadrant, inside auto helm, etc. Pretty complicated stuff. For a full-keel with attached rudder things get really complicated because, yes, you'd have to figure out how to dive and get the gudgeon and pintles apart at the bottom.