Making our Rudders | Part One

We lost our rudder sailing from the Canary Islands to St Lucia in the Caribbean. We've spent the last 14months cruising around with only 1 rudder. We really do need to make a new one but it has taken time to get the funds together and source materials. Plus we had to build some carbon chainplates in the mean time. youngbarnacles...
To make the rudder blades we sourced the foam from Wind in Martinique. We had epoxy and enough fibreglass on board to get the project underway. Martinique is a great place to source materials if you need to do boat repairs in the Windward Islands. As we already mentioned Shayne designed these rudders for Paikea. We always collect a lot of data while sailing. The information we learn on performance and efficiency helps us understand and improve Paikea's design.
In our latest video we show how we made the composite rudders for Paikea including how we shaped the foam blank and attached it to our stock. Lot's of information in this one. We hope you enjoy it and tune in next time when we show you how we laminated the fibreglass skin to the blade.
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[@rogerbayzand4455]

Clever stuff! There was I think how are you going to transfer the forces from the outer skin to the stock, then up pops the answer. It's fascinating to watch a master of modern composite construction and see how boatbuilding has evolved since the 60's when I started.

[@youngbarnacles]

Thanks mate

[@KeithStrang]

You could almost make a “Primitive Technology” style channel showing the hours and ingenuity that goes into these designs, without words.

[@youngbarnacles]

That guy has some patience and makes some great videos

[@jeredsellers5998]

Fantastic video. I can't wait for the laminating video! Many thanks!

[@mikeferguson2828]

Nice to see it coming together now

[@dougmarder]

Steady hands of a sculptor. I would have torn that foam a bunch of times doing the shaping by hand. Very surprised the rudder stock tabs were so small. I was expecting them to run at least 1/2 the width of the rudder blade. Thank you once again for sharing all this!

[@youngbarnacles]

Cheers mate. When I designed the rudders I also calculated the size of the torque tabs needed. No point making them any bigger than they need to be.

[@bunyipdan]

Great to see you build the rudders, especially impressive with limited resources ....... very surprised with how minimal structural/skeletal appendages you used to transfer rotational torque of rudder stock to blade. Thought you might even drill some lateral holes to fill with resin to lock it all together. Would love to hear more of a breakdown on your design/construction choices. Cheers

[@oldshiny3012]

interesting watch 👍

[@evangatehouse5650]

Shame you couldn't get the core CNC cut :) Glad to see you use the same method of mixing in the cabosil as I do - just grab a handful and mix until it's right.

[@youngbarnacles]

We did find a great composites guy with a CNC machine in Martinique but I had already glued the foam together by that stage so hand shaping it was. Anna loves the way I mix cabosil - half for the pot and the other half distributed evenly throughout the boat 😁 Was it you talking composite chainplates on Duracell project? Great video.

[@evangatehouse5650]

@@youngbarnacles Yes, that's me. And our cat who made the surprise guest appearance. Matt is doing a great job. He's doing nice work (though that wedge could have been more tapered but I never sent him a drawing for it. Sshh don't tell him and make him worried.)

[@youngbarnacles]

Cat cameo was hilarious 😂

[@captainsensible298]

Did this once for a C class cat, used Klegecell, vinyl ester and e glass for the first set, they broke in 15 knots, the next set were carbon unies and epoxy, sold the boat with them.

[@youngbarnacles]

there's a lot of load on them rudders. Just got to make some Orca proof ones and we'll be rich

[@kankama1]

I am glad you put those torque tabs on. I was thinking you would start with the torque tabs and add foam later, a normal metallic method (but I used cedar instead of foam for the blanks). The torque tabs look so small compared to normal rudder construction. Cheers Phil

[@youngbarnacles]

yup working with carbon and foam is a different method for sure

[@christopherpaul8705]

Good follow-up to the Shorts by Shayne the/my fellow Canetoad

[@CraigOverend]

Nice shaping skills. Make two more and glass them onto the bow upside down and back to front as extensions. 🙃

[@youngbarnacles]

Haha! I got a quicker way to make those bows....

[@HannesPeterWecker]

Amazing :) Could you describe the design process?

[@youngbarnacles]

A good suggestion for a later video - thanks

[@R.E.HILL_]

Nice one.. the winglets in part two, or abandoned all together..?

[@youngbarnacles]

no winglets. we wanted to but just ran out of time to make them. a pity because we'd love to see what a difference they make.

[@miningkiwi66]

You have got the kiwi ingenuity going. I haven't seen any #8 wire yet. I'm surprised by how small your tabs are for the amount of torque.

[@youngbarnacles]

Haha! no number 8 wire in the islands but they do have plenty of zip ties.

[@sea_knot]

Was it not easyer to make it from honeycomb? Mercury 5 as a weight was "properly using" :)

[@markbuskens6070]

Sea knot you obviously have not tried to cut or shape honey comb .

[@youngbarnacles]

haha! The Mercury 5 outboard motor is an industry standard clamping method. Honeycomb is not suitable because it is difficult to shape and if there is any water ingress it will fill up the honeycomb which is not what we want.

[@liamstone3437]

It looked like you were using thickened epoxy to wet out your carbon fiber tabs. Am I missing something?

[@youngbarnacles]

Epoxy resin thickened with aerosil powder

[@liamstone3437]

@@youngbarnacles Ok. I have not seen that. I am sure you made sure it wetted everything out but as I said I have never heard of that technique as it is generally thought to be harder to wet the fabric. Is there a trick or tactic to your way that I have never heard of? Is this done often with carbon fiber? ( I have no experience with carbon fiber only fiber glass).

[@youngbarnacles]

I'm pretty sure we cover it in some of our earlier videos. I'll have to double check but may have been the one about flush skin fittings? or fixing damage to the hull?

[@christopherpaul8705]

Shayne's Rudder Build, Mini Series, Episodes all Combined