Hi Scott

Monofilament rope (versus multifilament) is when the tiniest element or fibre in a thread is endless. This happens when it is extruded and then spun together with other elements. The resulting line and rope look quite shiny or ’silky’. Remember, each natural silk thread is also ‘extruded’ from the silk worm, so are just about monofilament.

You can have monofilament ropes, 3-strand or braided from any materiel, nylon, polyester or polypropylene, etc..

Multifilament threads are spun from shorter fibres, for instance wool, hemp or chopped up nylon-polyester-or-whatever.

Multifilament ropes, for instance on the outer layer of braided lines give better friction to the hand, so many prefer them. I on the other hand prefer halyards and sheets from monofilament (braided) rope because it stands up better to abrasion, so lasts longer. I compensate by using gloves, or my ‘Halyard Hauler’.

The fact that the rope is a bit slippery and resistant against chafe was my reason for trying it on my soft euphroe (polyester).

Good luck!

Arne

PS: I guess nylon should work. Mine was made of 8mm line, I think it was, but 10mm should also be fine.

I cut into the entire edge of the rudder with an oscillating multitool to inspect it. The top part of the rudder seems to be solid fiberglass. The crack running around the edge of this section was very much superficial. I think only the gelcoat cracked.

And the cracks in the lower part of the rudder were, I think, limited to some fairing material used to make the foil shape. The first 5mm or so were very soft before I hit a very solid material.

I filled the cut around the whole thing with thickened epoxy. Then I sanded. Then I filled again. Then I sanded again before finishing with several coats of topside paint and bottom paint.

I have more confidence in my rudder and I think it looks a little better than before.

Scott wrote:

I cleaned out the crack around the rudder. It all seems to be substantial foam or glass after the first 5mm or so. Last night the temperature dropped to 28F. I need to keep a close eye on the weather forecast and the thermometer in my garage. I hope there is still time left this year for mixing epoxy outside.

Edit: I need to find a way to be in New Zealand by this time of year. A much bigger boat, maybe.

Hard to imagine the temperature getting so cold that epoxy work needs to stop, I don't think that would happen anywhere in New Zealand. I live in the north of the country and although where I live early morning temperatures in the winter can get down to zero degrees Celsius, it does not stay that cold for long with daytime temperatures during the winter up to 15 degrees or more Celsius. So provided I use a fast hardener epoxy work is possible year round. When I was building my catamaran which was mostly outside, only part of the structure had a roof over it, I kept building and doing epoxy work throughout the winter.

I did for a while live in one of the coldest parts of New Zealand in the bottom of the South Island in an area known as Fiordland, and sometimes day time temperatures hovered at or just below zero degrees Celsius, but then there were also a lot of much warmer days. I do remember one day flying from our home city of Auckland back down to Queenstown which was our closest airport to where I worked and lived, and I went from a temperature of 14 degrees Celsius in Auckland to minus 4 degrees in Queenstown just two hours later, but that was very alpine. That was in June which is right into the depth of our winter. You definitely need to be able to fly south for the winter!

Yep, if there is a crack in the rudder blade I would just patch it up and then not worry about it. Put the extra money towards the next boat.

Scott wrote:

Hi David,

Thanks for the response. I think the upper part of the rudder is solid glass and polyester and I suspect the lower section is fiberglass with a foam core. Being unsure is part of my problem. I don't know if the 'soft stuff' in the lower section is foam and is expected to be soft, or if it is soft because it has deteriorated.

I was calling the section that is generally underwater the 'red' section and the part that sits above the water in the rudder head the 'white' section. I guess it is more like a section with remnants of red paint and not really solid red. I attached cropped and labeled photo.

That rudder blade looks to me like it should still be very substantial, and if there is no real flexing or bending in it I think it should last a long time. For the size of boat and the shape of the blade it will be of fairly robust construction. I would have thought the area where your rudder is most likely to fail is at the hinge point and the upper rudder, that is where I would be looking for any signs of failure. So if it were me I would carry our any essential spot repairs to the blade, and check the upper part of the rudder, and save myself a lot of money. A good way to check the overall rudder structure is with the boat out of the water and the blade as much as possible in the lowered sailing position, grab the bottom of the blade and try and move it from side to side. If there is no excessive flexing in the structure then it should be fine, especially considering the size of boat. The foam core of the lower rudder blade will be soft. If the blade is not unduly heavy, and does not have a lot of water seeping out of any cracks etc, then there has probably been little water ingress. But even that should not matter, the strength of the blade being in the fiberglass shell, and even old fiberglass does not deteriorate unless it has osmosis which would be unlikely for your colder climate. The only other thing which would cause the fiberglass to delaminate and fail would be impact damage.

I know it is very easy for me to say this being thousands of miles away. You will be descending very quickly into winter, and down here in New Zealand we are finally starting to get some summer like weather and are looking forward to summer holidays and lots of sailing within the next 7 to 8 weeks. 

Scott wrote:

A couple of times this summer, while moving through a narrow channel with confused waves, it occurred to me that it would be very, very, bad if my rudder failed right at that moment. 

With the boat in storage the rudder is now in my garage for inspection. I added a photo album showing the current state of my rudder. I chipped away at the outer layer with a pick in a couple of locations. In general the 'stuff' under the cracks in the white section are solid and very difficult for me to press into with the pick. The 'stuff' under the crack in the red section is soft and easy for me to dig out with the pick.

I also took some measurements to get a quote for a professional replacement. The quote came back at something like half the amount I paid for the boat.

So I am trying to decide between a few options.

1. Pay over $2k for a new fiberglass rudder.
2. Pay a little less for an HDPE kick-up rudder.
3. Grind out the cracks in the rudder until I hit something solid and then use thickened epoxy plus fiberglass to repair it.

I don't think can make my own new fiberglass rudder. I think this would be so time consuming that I would not be able to finish any other boat projects this winter. 

Does anyone have an opinion on this rudder? The price seems good, but I wonder if plain HDPE will be rigid enough. Over time I imagine it could bend back and forth and eventually fail.

This is not exactly a junk-rig specific topic, but I enjoy interacting with the people here in our little junk rig cult more than the sailing community in general. :)

If no one has an opinion to share I will try to find some other S2 6.7 owners.

I do have some rudder experience in that just 8 months after we returned to New Zealand on Footprints following our offshore voyage to New Caledonia an incident occurred which lead me to inspect the condition of her solid timber rudder, and I found that a large part of the rudder stock was full of rot, and had no doubt been in that condition during our two ocean passages, so of course there were panic thoughts of 'that could have failed mid ocean'. I think the thing that saved our bacon was the fact that there was a solid 25mm thick teak rudder cheek glued to each side of the rudder stock. Anyway I made a new rudder and in the process improved the shape of the rudder which was very beneficial to the handling characteristics of 'Footprints'.

Is your rudder of fiberglass construction, and maybe with a foam core? I could not see anything in the photos which indicated a serious problem The strength of the rudder would be in the fiberglass either side. If the rudder is fiberglass, and there were concerns about the condition, and it were my rudder, I would carry out fiberglass repairs to the existing rudder. If there were areas of concern I would grind back to clean fiberglass, with tapered edges, and then re-laminate with fiberglass to strengthen the area of concern. I would not use epoxy for this, but rather polyester resin which would have been used in the original construction. If you were really concerned about the rudder condition you could seriously sand back the outer surface and then laminate on a couple of layers woven rovings, using polyester resin, and over the final layer apply a layer of peel ply to give a smooth almost paint ready finish surface. But that rudder should still be very strong given the size of boat, and certainly you should not need to splash out hundreds of dollars on a new rudder.

I couldn't quite see where the red section is, There looked to be some damage at the bottom of the rudder which is to be expected for a boat of that age. The rudder could also be hollow being made up of two halves glued together. If there were any splitting or separation of the join that would be very easy to repair by grinding back a layer and then applying a couple of layers of fiberglass tape,