Rudder Woes
We hauled our boat and found blisters on the rudder. Crawled under the cockpit and found the shaft seal had been leaking too. When the stuffing box was opened up we found that stainless steel studs had been installed for the bronze casting and the two metals were not happy together. One of the bolts was completely eaten away. It gets better. When the rudder was removed for repair we found the sleeve for the rudder post was cracked and water had invaded the fiberglass to the point of it becoming mush. If we had hit something with the rudder in this condition we probably would have blown a hole in the hull.Repairs are under way. Once the glass is cut away and dried out we'll install a G-10 tube and glass it in place to create a new sleeve, installed with a refurbished stuffing box.It's suspected that the rudder was hit pretty hard in it's previous life as a charter boat. The rudder shoe was not straight and this would also account for the cracked sleeve.
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