I took the boat out for its first sail this year and lost the rudder.
Do you guys think this is reparable or am I buying a new boat? It’d be a shame to lose her over something so stupid
That’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.
Luckily it was outside the environment when this occurred
This happened mid sail, but we were fortunate enough to get a tow back to the dock and on a lift
I’m glad it was this and not the mast
Oof! That sounds exciting. What took the rudder off?
A wave hit it.
I wish I could tell you.
My best guess is that the pin bounced out when i was trying to help my wife uncleat the jib and the pressure just ripped the rudder right off. It was just a perfect storm of a large wind gust, waves, and a hardware failure
You forgot too-flimsy engineering for the conditions.
c a marchaj & Dave Gerr both spoke against too-flimsy engineering, & the industry generally doesn’t care ( boats which disappear don’t make headlines: only ones noticed to be disappearing do, right? )
That boat needs to, if fixed, NEVER go into conditions as rough as what it was in.
It may well have been oversold/under-engineered for what the marketing said it was for.
Please consider investing in both Dave Gerr’s “Elements of Boat Strength” & a book named “Surveying Yachts And Small Craft”,
and then earn enough understanding to figure out how sound your boat is.
Those 2 books cost drastically less than a new boat, & they’ll help you in any future boat-purchases you make, too.
Warning, though: nearly no boats are up to Gerr’s scantlings ( thicknesses of different areas of a hull, for all who haven’t been dredged through boatish lingo before ).
( other authors worth investing-in: Nigel Calder & Tom Cunliffe )
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Rudder? I barely know ‘er!