Wooden rudder

[Fortitude]

I have a wooden rudder on my Pearson Rhodes 41 yawl and it’s my third season with the boat and first wooden rudder. I understand how the planks swell and tighten when in the water. After the summer season and when I was hauling out for the winter I checked the stiffness to the rudder and it seemed to be loose at the top of the rudder. Didn’t seem like the rods going though the wood were very tight like they wore out inside the wood. I’m thinking I would just want to go fiberglass and add a bearing to the shoe to hold the weight of fiberglass as wood helps to float the rudder. No expert on a build like that and I’m just looking for any links online that could show keel hung rudder construction/rebuild for wood or fiberglass for a larger sailboat rudder. Seems to be all small dory rudder builds or spade rudder construct videos Online mostly. I must not have done something right to take in account for the swelling of the rudder when applying the bottom paint as it started to come off in chunks after about a week in the water. Like I said not sure how wooden rudders work entirely and just trying to get some advise on the subject thanks

[atomvoyager]

You could post your question and photos on the Wooden Boat forum. It's a wood rudder at least so you should be able to get some advice there. The wooden boat people often disagree but I like to encase the wood rudder in epoxy glass after repairing any rot. You should push a knife blade into the wood to see how soft it is. The flaking paint could be due to the wood being soft and water saturated or wrong primer. I'd be tempted to disassemble the rudder to inspect the condition and construction and then rebuild it depending on what you find. If you do take it apart you can post your photos and ideas on repair here for comment.

http://forum.woodenboat.com/