i am making a rudder

[AlanH]

So this rudder will be comparable to a J-29 or J-30 rudder except that this one will be balanced and the One Design rudders for those boats are not balanced. The entirety of the One Design rudder blades for those boats are behind the axis of rotation of the rudders; the entire rudder is aft of the gudgeon/pintle pin axis. Balanced rudders are not class-legal...though maybe the classes should make them legal as those guys all talk about how their rudders load up something fierce on a long, heavy-air reach.

Anyway, Competition Composites..aka "Phils Foils" makes a balanced rudder for the J-29/J-30. It's a beauty.

http://www.fastcomposites.ca/site/wp...-gallery-2.jpg

...It's also $2400 (Canadian dollars) cha-chiiinnnnggggg....though honestly probably worth every loonie you pay for it.

Rudder Craft also makes a balanced J-30/J-29 wood-core rudder. It's $2100 USA. Waterline Systems makes a class rudder theoretically for $1400, but it's not balanced and they didn't return either of my e-mails. Larry Tuttle at Waterrat quoted me $2K for a much "hotter" elliptical rudder, and I thought about that but two thousand dollars is a lot of moolah for this guy.

Rudder Craft makes rudders which are somewhat smaller than these which would probably work for my boat, but the largest one they make and market for 24-26 footers is made of machined HDPE plastic. That stuff bends under load. If I was just cruising around I might not care, but.... They also make an $895 wood core rudder, but it was just a scooch smaller and thinner- aka "less robust" than I wanted. It probably would work, but it would suck to find out that it didn't on the LongPac Racae, 185 miles out. On the other hand that $895 plus shipping includes custom rudder gudgeons for 5/8th inch pins, and those are about $350, right there. But still, their wood core rudder was just a bit too small and thin for what I wanted. I wanted ridiculous BEEF.

So here I am, making a rudder. I should also add that I am NOT a "fine woodworker". I have Orchard Supply level tools...a small table saw, hand drill, cheapo jigaw, cheapo circular saw, and now a pretty decent router, but seriously...I'm making this on my garage floor.