Rudder Replacement
Sailing on the Florida Gulf coast, there is no shortage of skinny water, be at the beaches where the sugar sand goes forever in 3 ft water or the bayous, or inlets or in the various bays. Given the stock 42 inch rudder is great in open water, it's a bit of a handicap when close coastal cruising.
The boat can sail very well at slow speed with the rudder up, but let's face it, tris just want to giddy up most of the time. So out there in skinny water, rudder up, tiller very heavy and get a nice gust, opps way hard to steer. I talked to and emailed with two other Astus owners here in Florida. Both have changed out the stock rudder for something shorter. And talking with other new boat owners, the consensus (non-scientific statistical analysis) is that a knowledgeable new sail boat purchaser should have the option of rudders, either with the OEM or other supplier, given the area to sail, boat's characteristics, and owners skill.
This boat does trim well for cruising. Set the sail trim, the helm can be light as in auto pilot. See the previous post with Justin's 10K Islands Camp Sail video (at the 4:08 mark) where I was showing how to trim and let the boat sail itself. However there is lots of very nice 3 to 4 foot water 'round here along the coast and the long stock rudder does not play nice there. So what's a sailor to do? Spend cash to a third party on a stock part suggestion , or have a very skilled local naval architect work with what you have and design a replacement, given the area to sail.
So I set out on a ruder replacement project with BedardYachtDesign.com to develop a rudder with what we think is an improved profile and 12 inch shorter rudder length for the Florida coast shore cruising. The new design also has an improved attack at the water line to prevent undue and annoying back splash at the lower gudgeon.
As you can see the rudder has just been fabricated out of laminated cedar, per the detailed design, C&C fabrication and epoxy, glass, vacuum bagging. The replacement rudder will fit into the existing rudder box with a different tiller. Plan to tri it out on the upcoming Florida 120 Raid Cruise in the Pensacola area next week.